Deuteronomy 7:6

7:6 For you are a people holy ¹  to the Lord your God. He ²  has chosen you to be his people, prized ³  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:2

14:2 For you are a people holy ⁴  to the Lord your God. He ⁵  has chosen you to be his people, prized ⁶  above all others on the face of the earth.

Deuteronomy 14:21

14:21 You may not eat any corpse, though you may give it to the resident foreigner who is living in your villages ⁷  and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. You are a people holy to the Lord your God. Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. ⁸ 

Deuteronomy 23:14

23:14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat ⁹  your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent ¹⁰  among you and turn away from you.

¹ tn That is, “set apart.”

² tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

³ tn Or “treasured” (so NIV, NRSV); NLT “his own special treasure.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

⁴ tn Or “set apart.”

⁵ tn Heb “The Lord.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

⁶ tn Or “treasured.” The Hebrew term סְגֻלָּה (sÿgullah) describes Israel as God’s choice people, those whom he elected and who are most precious to him (cf. Exod 19:4-6; Deut 14:2; 26:18; 1 Chr 29:3; Ps 135:4; Eccl 2:8 Mal 3:17). See E. Carpenter, NIDOTTE 3:224.

⁷ tn Heb “gates” (also in vv. 27, 28, 29).

⁸ sn Do not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk. This strange prohibition – one whose rationale is unclear but probably related to pagan ritual – may seem out of place here but actually is not for the following reasons: (1) the passage as a whole opens with a prohibition against heathen mourning rites (i.e., death, vv. 1-2) and closes with what appear to be birth and infancy rites. (2) In the other two places where the stipulation occurs (Exod 23:19 and Exod 34:26) it similarly concludes major sections. (3) Whatever the practice signified it clearly was abhorrent to the Lord and fittingly concludes the topic of various breaches of purity and holiness as represented by the ingestion of unclean animals (vv. 3-21). See C. M. Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” HTR 69 (1976): 1-7; J. Milgrom, “You Shall Not Boil a Kid In Its Mother’s Milk,” BRev 1 (1985): 48-55; R. J. Ratner and B. Zuckerman, “In Rereading the ‘Kid in Milk’ Inscriptions,” BRev 1 (1985): 56-58; and M. Haran, “Seething a Kid in its Mother’s Milk,” JJS 30 (1979): 23-35.

¹⁰ tn Heb “give [over] your enemies.”

¹¹ tn Heb “nakedness of a thing”; NLT “any shameful thing.” The expression עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (’ervat davar) refers specifically to sexual organs and, by extension, to any function associated with them. There are some aspects of human life that are so personal and private that they ought not be publicly paraded. Cultically speaking, even God is offended by such impropriety (cf. Gen 9:22-23; Lev 18:6-12, 16-19; 20:11, 17-21). See B. Seevers, NIDOTTE 3:528-30.