Deuteronomy 13 · Parashat Reeh

Every matter which I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and he give thee a sign or a wonder,

and the sign or the wonder come to pass, of which he spoke to thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;

thou shalt not hearken to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God puts you to the proof, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

You shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and you shall serve him, and hold fast to him.

And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Miżrayim and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, who is as thy own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, either near to thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth;

thou shalt not consent to him, nor hearken to him; nor shall thy eye pity him, nor shalt thou spare, nor shalt thou conceal him:

but thou shalt surely kill him; thy hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he has sought to draw thee away from the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Miżrayim, from the house of bondage.

And all Yisra᾽el shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.

If thou shalt hear say in one of thy cities, which the Lord thy God has given thee to dwell there, saying,

Certain men, wicked persons, are gone out from among you, and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you know not;

then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination was done among you;

thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is in it, and its cattle with the edge of the sword.

And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the open place of the city, and shalt burn with fire both the city and the entire plunder taken in it, for the Lord thy God: and it shall be a heap for ever; it shall not be built again.

And nothing of that which was devoted to destruction shall remain in your hand: that the Lord may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he has sworn to thy fathers;

when thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord thy God.