Deuteronomy 13

1 When there shall arise in thy midst—a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, —and he shall give unto thee a sign or a wonder;

“Possibly there will be people among you who [say that they] are prophets. They may say that they are able to interpret the meaning of dreams or perform various kinds of miracles [DOU].

2 and the sign or the wonder shall come in, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, —Let us go after other gods, which ye know not and let us serve them

They will say those things in order to induce/persuade you to worship gods that you have never known about before. But even if what they predict happens,

3 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams, —for Yahweh your God, is putting you to the proof, to know whether ye do love Yahweh your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

do not pay attention to what they say. Yahweh our God will be testing you to find out if you love him with all your inner being.

4 After Yahweh your God, shall ye walk And him, shall ye revere, —And his commandments, shall ye observe. And unto his voice, shall ye hearken, And him, shall ye serve And unto him, shall ye cleave.

You must conduct your lives as Yahweh our God wants you to, and you must revere him, and do what he tells you to do [MTY], and worship only him, and (be faithful to/have a close relationship with) him.

5 And that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death because he hath spoken revolt against Yahweh your God, —who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt and redeemed thee out of the house of servants, to seduce thee out of the way wherein Yahweh thy God hath commanded thee to walk, —so shalt thou consume the wicked thing out of thy midst.

“But you must execute anyone who [falsely says that he] is a prophet, or someone who [falsely] says that he can interpret dreams, or who tells you to rebel against Yahweh our God, who rescued your ancestors from being slaves in Egypt. People like that are only wanting to cause you to stop conducting your lives as Yahweh has commanded you to do. Execute them, to get rid of this evil among you.

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

It does not matter if even your brother or your daughter or your wife or some close/dear friend secretly urges you, saying ‘Let’s worship other gods. They are gods which you or your ancestors have never known about.

7 of the gods of the peoples who are round about you, who are near unto thee, or who are far off from thee, —from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth,

Some of them may encourage you to worship gods that people-groups that live near you worship, or gods that groups who live far away worship.

8 thou shalt not consent unto him, neither shalt thou hearken unto him, —neither shall thine eye look with pity upon him, neither shalt thou spare—neither shalt thou conceal him;

Do not [SYN] do what they suggest. Do not even listen to them. Do not even be merciful to them, and do not keep secret what they have done.

9 but thou shalt slay, him, thine own hand, shall be on him first, to put him to death, —and the hand of all the people afterwards.

Execute them! You [who are their relative] must be the first one to [throw stones at them to] kill them, and then let everyone else [MTY] throw stones at them, too.

10 And thou shalt stone him with stones that he die, —for he hath sought to seduce thee from Yahweh thy God, who brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of servants.

Kill such people by throwing stones at them, because they are trying to cause you to stop worshiping Yahweh our God, who rescued your ancestors from being slaves in Egypt.

11 And, all Israel, shall hear and fear, —and shall not again do according to this wickedness in thy midst.

When they are executed, all the Israeli people will hear [what happened], and they will become afraid, and none of them will do such an evil thing again.

12 When thou shalt hear—in one of thy cities which Yahweh thy God is giving unto thee to dwell there—saying:

“When you are living in one of the towns in the land that Yahweh our God is giving to you, you may hear

13 There have gone forth men sons of the Abandoned One, out of thy midst, and have seduced the inhabitants of their city, saying, —Let us go, and serve other gods which ye have not known;

that some worthless people there among you [IDM] are deceiving the people of their town, saying, ‘Let’s go and worship other gods,’ but they are gods that you have never heard about before.

14 and thou shalt enquire, and search out, and ask diligently, —and lo! true—certain, is the thing, this abomination, hath been done, in thy midst,

Investigate it thoroughly/carefully. If [you find out that] it is true that such a disgraceful thing has happened,

15 then shalt thou smite, the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, devoting it to destruction, and all that is therein and the cattle thereof: with the edge of the sword, —

kill all the people in that town. And kill all their livestock, too. Destroy the town completely.

16 and all the spoil thereof, shalt thou gather together into the midst of the broadway thereof, and shalt consume with fire the city and all the spoil thereof, every whit, unto Yahweh thy God, —and it shall be a heap unto times age-abiding, it shall be built no more.

Gather all the possessions that belonged to the people who lived there and pile them up in the city plaza. Then burn the town and everything in it, as though it were an offering to Yahweh that would be completely burned [on the altar]. The ruins/ashes must stay there forever; the town must never be rebuilt.

17 So shall there not cleave to thy hand aught of the devoted thing, —that Yahweh may turn away, from the glow of his anger and grant thee compassion and have compassion upon thee and multiply thee, as he sware unto thy fathers;

None of you Israelis must take for yourselves [IDM] anything that Yahweh has said must be destroyed. But if you do what I say, Yahweh will stop being angry with you, and he will act mercifully toward you. And he will cause you to have many children/descendants, which is what he promised our ancestors that he would do.

18 so long as thou shalt hearken unto the voice of Yahweh thy God, to keep all his commandments, which I am commanding thee to-day, —to do what is right in the eyes of Yahweh thy God.

Yahweh our God will do all those things if you do what he is telling you to do, and if you obey all the commandments that I am giving to you today and do what Yahweh says is right [for you to do].”