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You must not give in to him or even listen to him; do not feel sympathy for him or spare him or cover up for him. Instead, you must kill him without fail![a] Your own hand must be the first to strike him,[b] and then the hands of the whole community. 10 You must stone him to death[c] because he tried to entice you away from the Lord your God, who delivered you from the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.

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Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 13:9 tn The Hebrew text uses the infinitive absolute for emphasis, which the translation indicates with the words “without fail” (cf. NIV “you must certainly put him to death”).
  2. Deuteronomy 13:9 tn Heb “to put him to death,” but this is misleading in English for such an action would leave nothing for the others to do.
  3. Deuteronomy 13:10 sn Execution by means of pelting the offender with stones afforded a mechanism whereby the whole community could share in it. In a very real sense it could be done not only in the name of the community and on its behalf but by its members (cf. Lev 24:14; Num 15:35; Deut 21:21; Josh 7:25).