Deuteronomy 12:3-5 New English Translation
3 You must tear down their altars, shatter their sacred pillars,[a] burn up their sacred Asherah poles,[b] and cut down the images of their gods; you must eliminate their very memory from that place. 4 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they worship. 5 But you must seek only the place he[c] chooses from all your tribes to establish his name as his place of residence,[d] and you must go there.
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- Deuteronomy 12:3 sn Sacred pillars. These are the stelae (stone pillars; the Hebrew term is מַצֵּבֹת, matsevot) associated with Baal worship, perhaps to mark a spot hallowed by an alleged visitation of the gods. See also Deut 7:5.
- Deuteronomy 12:3 sn Sacred Asherah poles. The Hebrew term (plural) is אֲשֵׁרִים (ʾasherim). See note on the word “(leafy) tree” in v. 2, and also Deut 7:5.
- Deuteronomy 12:5 tn Heb “the Lord your God.” The pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.
- Deuteronomy 12:5 tc Some scholars, on the basis of v. 11, emend the MT reading שִׁכְנוֹ (shikhno, “his residence”) to the infinitive construct לְשַׁכֵּן (leshakken, “to make [his name] to dwell”), perhaps with the third person masculine singular sf לְשַׁכְּנוֹ (leshakkeno, “to cause it to dwell”). Though the presupposed noun שֵׁכֶן (shekhen) is nowhere else attested, the parallel here with שַׁמָּה (shammah, “there”) favors retaining the MT as it stands.
New English Translation (NET)
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