Warning Against Abominable Practices. ^29 (A)When the Lord, your God, cuts down from before you the nations you are going in to dispossess, and you have dispossessed them and are settled in their land, ³⁰ be careful that you not be trapped into following them after they have been destroyed before you. Do not inquire regarding their gods, “How did these nations serve their gods, so I might do the same.” ³¹ You shall not worship the Lord, your God, that way, because they offered to their gods every abomination that the Lord detests, even burning their sons and daughters to their gods.^(B)

²⁴ Do not defile yourselves by any of these things, because by them the nations whom I am driving out of your way have defiled themselves. ²⁵ And so the land has become defiled, and I have punished it for its wickedness, and the land has vomited out its inhabitants.^{(A) 26} You, however, must keep my statutes and decrees, avoiding all these abominations, both the natives and the aliens resident among you— ²⁷ because the previous inhabitants did all these abominations and the land became defiled; ²⁸ otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you. ²⁹ For whoever does any of these abominations shall be cut off from the people. ³⁰ Heed my charge, then, not to observe the abominable customs that have been observed before your time, and thus become impure by them.^(B) I, the Lord, am your God.