Leviticus 26:30

26:30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, ¹  and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. ²  I will abhor you. ³ 

Deuteronomy 7:5

7:5 Instead, this is what you must do to them: You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars, ⁴  cut down their sacred Asherah poles, ⁵  and burn up their idols.

Deuteronomy 7:2

7:2 and he ⁶  delivers them over to you and you attack them, you must utterly annihilate ⁷  them. Make no treaty ⁸  with them and show them no mercy!

Deuteronomy 18:4

18:4 You must give them the best of your ⁹  grain, new wine, and olive oil, as well as the best of your wool when you shear your flocks.

Deuteronomy 23:12-15

23:12 You are to have a place outside the camp to serve as a latrine. ¹⁰  23:13 You must have a spade among your other equipment and when you relieve yourself ¹¹  outside you must dig a hole with the spade ¹²  and then turn and cover your excrement. ¹³  23:14 For the Lord your God walks about in the middle of your camp to deliver you and defeat ¹⁴  your enemies for you. Therefore your camp should be holy, so that he does not see anything indecent ¹⁵  among you and turn away from you.

Purity in the Treatment of the Nonprivileged

23:15 You must not return an escaped slave to his master when he has run away to you. ¹⁶ 

Deuteronomy 23:2

23:2 A person of illegitimate birth ¹⁷  may not enter the assembly of the Lord; to the tenth generation no one related to him may do so. ¹⁸ 

Deuteronomy 34:4

34:4 Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ ¹⁹  I have let you see it, ²⁰  but you will not cross over there.”

[26:30]  ¹ sn Regarding these cultic installations, see the remarks in B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 188, and R. E. Averbeck, NIDOTTE 2:903. The term rendered “incense altars” might better be rendered “sanctuaries [of foreign deities]” or “stelae.”

[26:30]  ² tn The translation reflects the Hebrew wordplay “your corpses…the corpses of your idols.” Since idols, being lifeless, do not really have “corpses,” the translation uses “dead bodies” for people and “lifeless bodies” for the idols.

[26:30]  ³ tn Heb “and my soul will abhor you.”

[7:5]  ⁴ sn Sacred pillars. The Hebrew word (מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) denotes a standing pillar, usually made of stone. Its purpose was to mark the presence of a shrine or altar thought to have been visited by deity. Though sometimes associated with pure worship of the Lord (Gen 28:18, 22; 31:13; 35:14; Exod 24:4), these pillars were usually associated with pagan cults and rituals (Exod 23:24; 34:13; Deut 12:3; 1 Kgs 14:23; 2 Kgs 17:10; Hos 3:4; 10:1; Jer 43:13).

[7:5]  ⁵ sn Sacred Asherah poles. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], as here). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[7:2]  ⁷ tn In the Hebrew text the infinitive absolute before the finite verb emphasizes the statement. The imperfect has an obligatory nuance here. Cf. ASV “shalt (must NRSV) utterly destroy them”; CEV “must destroy them without mercy.”

[7:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “covenant” (so NASB, NRSV); TEV “alliance.”

[18:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “the firstfruits of your…” (so NIV).

[23:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “so that one may go outside there.” This expression is euphemistic.

[23:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “sit.” This expression is euphemistic.

[23:13]  ¹² tn Heb “with it”; the referent (the spade mentioned at the beginning of the verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[23:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “what comes from you,” a euphemism.

[23:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “give [over] your enemies.”

[23:14]  ¹⁵ 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.

[23:15]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text includes “from his master,” but this would be redundant in English style.

[23:2]  ¹⁷ tn Or “a person born of an illegitimate marriage.”

[23:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “enter the assembly of the Lord.” The phrase “do so” has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[34:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).

[34:4]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew text includes “with your eyes,” but this is redundant in English and is left untranslated.