Deuteronomy 14 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.
Time Period
~1406 BC, continuing the law code before the entry into Canaan
Location
the plains of Moab, anticipating daily life and markets in the settled land
Audience
Israelites who would share the region with peoples whose diets and mourning customs differed
Situation
Moses forbids certain mourning practices, lists which animals, fish and birds may be eaten, and sets out the tithe, including the rule for converting produce to money when the sanctuary is far away.
Key Background
Cutting the body and shaving the front of the head were common mourning rites among neighbouring peoples, often connected with rituals for the dead, so the ban marks off Israelite grief from those practices. The food lists work by categories rather than by anything resembling modern nutrition, grouping creatures by whether they fit the expected pattern for their domain, so a fish needs fins and scales and a land animal needs a split hoof and a cud chewing stomach. The provision for selling produce, carrying the silver, and buying whatever you want at the sanctuary is a practical response to distance in a society with no refrigeration, and the third year tithe kept in the local town funded Levites, foreigners, orphans and widows, functioning as a standing welfare arrangement.
You are Yahweh your God's Don't or shave the front of your heads for the dead.
Because you are a who to your God. Out of every on the face of the earth, chose you to be his
Don't eat anything that is
These are the animals you may eat: the ox, the sheep, the goat,
the deer, the gazelle, the roebuck, the wild goat, the ibex, the antelope, and the mountain sheep.
You may eat any animal that has a divided into two parts and also chews the cud.
But these you must not eat, even though they chew the cud or have a split hoof: the camel, the hare, and the rock badger — because they chew the cud but don't have a split hoof, they are off-limits for you.
And the pig — because it has a split hoof but doesn't chew the cud, it is for you. Don't eat their meat, and don't even touch their carcasses.
Of everything that lives in the water, you may eat these: anything with fins and scales, you may eat.
But anything without fins and scales, you must not eat — it is off-limits for you.
You may eat any bird that is permitted.
But these are the ones you must not eat: the eagle, the bearded vulture, the black vulture,
the red kite, the black kite, and every kind of falcon,
every kind of raven,
the ostrich, the nighthawk, the seagull, and every kind of hawk,
the little owl, the great owl, the white owl,
the pelican, the carrion vulture, the cormorant,
the stork, every kind of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat.
All are off-limits for you — they must not be eaten.
But any winged creature that is permitted, you may eat.
Don't eat anything that dies on its own. You may give it to the living in your towns and they can eat it, or you may sell it to an outsider. Because you are a who to your God. Don't a in its
Be sure to set aside a of everything your fields produce each year.
Eat the tenth of your grain, your new wine, and your olive oil, along with the firstborn of your herds and flocks, in the presence of Yahweh your God at the he will to establish his name. This is so you learn to Yahweh your God at all times.
But if the journey is too long for you and you can't carry it all — because the place Yahweh your God will choose to establish his name is too far away from you when Yahweh your God has been to you —
then convert it into silver. Take the silver in hand and go to the place Yahweh your God will choose.
Use that silver to buy whatever you want — cattle, sheep, wine, anything your appetite craves. Then eat there in the presence of Yahweh your God, and with your household.
And don't neglect the living in your towns, because he has no land allotment or inheritance like you do.
At the end of every three years, bring out the full tenth of your produce for that year and store it in your towns.
Then the Levite — who has no land allotment or inheritance like you — along with the the and the living in your towns, will come and eat and be satisfied. Do this so that Yahweh your God will be to you in everything you do.