Don’t mourn like others
1You are the LORD’s people. You belong to God. When you mourn the loss of someone, don’t express your sorrow by cutting yourself, like people in other nations do. And don’t shave the hair at the front of your head. [1] 2You are the LORD’s chosen people, selected from among all the people in this world. You are devoted to the LORD your God, which makes you holy to him.Land animals on a kosher menu
3Don’t eat anything the LORD forbids you to eat. 4It’s okay to eat cattle, sheep, and goats. 5And you can eat deer, gazelle, roebuck, wild goat, ibex, antelope, and mountain sheep. [2] 6You can eat any animal that chews the cud and walks on split hooves. [3]7But you’re not allowed to eat animals that do only one of those two: chew the cud or walk on split hooves. These animals include camel, rabbit, rock hyrax. [4] They chew a cud, but don’t have split hooves. They are ritually unclean for you and forbidden. 8The pig has split hooves but doesn’t chew a cud. Don’t eat it. Don’t even touch a pig’s dead carcass. Dead or alive, pigs are ritually unclean.
Seafood
9You’re allowed to eat anything from the water that has fins and scales. 10But don’t eat anything that doesn’t have both. Those animals are ritually unclean.Non-kosher birds
11You can eat any ritually clean bird.12But don’t eat any of these birds: eagle, [6] vulture,
13any kind of kite, falcon,
14any kind of raven,
15ostrich, owl, any kind of hawk,
16little owl, great owl, white owl,
17pelican, Egyptian vulture, aquatic cormorant,
18stork, any kind of heron, hoopoe, and bat.
Kosher insects
19If a critter has wings and can fly in a swarm, don’t eat it. It’s ritually unclean and not fit to eat. 20Birds aren’t in that group. You can eat any ritually clean bird.Drop-dead animals
21If an animal dies on its own, don’t eat it. You can give it or sell it to someone who’s not an Israelite, so others can eat it. But don’t you eat it; you’re devoted to the LORD your God. Also, don’t boil a young goat in the milk of its own mother.Give 10 percent of what you produce
22Give a 10 percent tithe of everything you harvest from the seeds you plant. 23Take your tithe to the place of worship that the LORD your God will choose. That’s where you’ll eat a meal [7] from this tithe. You’ll eat some of your grain, new wine, olive oil. And you’ll have some meat from the firstborn [8] animals of your herds and flocks. Do this to develop a growing and lasting respect for the LORD your God. 24If you live too far away to carry your tithe of crops and livestock to the worship center, 25you can sell it. Then bring the money to the worship center of the LORD your God.26When you arrive at the worship center, use that money to buy whatever you want: cattle, sheep, wine or beer. Whatever you want. Then use it to prepare a meal that you and your family eat in the presence of the LORD your God. Celebrate. 27Hey, don’t forget the Levites who live near you. Give them their share of the tithe. That’s their salary. They didn’t get any tribal territory, and they depend on the tithe. 28Every third year, instead of taking your tithe to the worship center, store it somewhere locally. 29Then give it away. Give it to Levites who don’t own a tribal territory and who depend on the tithe for income. And give it to orphans and widows and immigrants. Let them all eat to satisfy their hunger. Do this so the LORD your God will bless you with success in the work you do.
