1 Every word that I command you this day, you shall observe it and do it: you shall not add to it, nor diminish from it. 2 And if there arise within you a prophet, or one who dreams a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass which he spoke to you, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which you do not know; 4 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet, or the dreamer of that dream, because the Lord your God tries you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 5 You shall follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, and you shall hear his voice, and attach yourselves to him. 6 And that prophet or that dreamer of a dream, shall die; for he has spoken to make you err from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, who redeemed you from bondage, to thrust you out of the way which the Lord your God commanded you to walk in: so you will abolish the evil from among you. 7 And if your brother by your father or mother, or your son, or daughter, or your wife in your bosom, or friend who is equal to your own soul, implore you secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known, 8 of the gods of the nations that are all around you, who are near you or at a distance from you, from one end of the earth to the other; 9 you shall not consent to him, neither shall you listen to him; and your eye shall not spare him, you shall feel no regret for him, neither shall you at all protect him: 10 you shall surely report concerning him, and your hands shall be upon him among the first to kill him, and the hands of all the people at the last. 11 And they shall stone him with stones, and he shall die, because he sought to draw you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 12 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall not again do according to this evil thing among you. 13 And if in one of your cities which the Lord your God gives you to dwell there, you shall hear men saying, 14 Evil men have gone out from you, and have caused all the inhabitants of their city to fall away, saying, Let us go and worship other gods, whom you did not know, 15 then you shall inquire and ask, and search diligently, and look, if the thing is clearly true, and this abomination has taken place among you, 16 you shall utterly destroy all the dwellers in that city with the edge of the sword; you shall solemnly curse it, and all things in it. 17 And all its captured goods you shall gather into its public ways, and you shall burn the city with fire, and all its captured goods publicly before the Lord your God; and it shall be uninhabited for ever, it shall not be built again. 18 And there shall nothing of the cursed thing cling to your hand, that the Lord may turn from his fierce anger, and show you mercy, and pity you, and multiply you, as he swore to your fathers; 19 if you will hear the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments, all that I charge you this day, to do that which is good and pleasing before the Lord your God.⁠a