17. Nothing that you offer to the Lord is to be eaten in the places where you live: neither the tithes of your corn, your wine, or your olive oil, nor the firstborn of your cattle and sheep, the gifts that you promise to the Lord, your freewill offerings, or any other offerings.
18. You and your children, together with your servants and the Levites who live in your towns, are to eat these offerings only in the presence of the Lord your God, in the one place of worship chosen by the Lord your God. And you are to be happy there over everything that you have done.
19. Be sure, also, not to neglect the Levites, as long as you live in your land.
20. “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he has promised, you may eat meat whenever you wish.
21. If the one place of worship is too far away, then, whenever you wish, you may kill any of the cattle or sheep that the Lord has given you, and you may eat the meat at home, as I have told you.
22. Anyone, ritually clean or unclean, may eat that meat, just as he would eat the meat of deer or antelope.
23. Only do not eat meat with blood still in it, for the life is in the blood, and you must not eat the life with the meat.
24. Do not use the blood for food; instead pour it out on the ground like water.
25. If you obey this command, the Lord will be pleased, and all will go well for you and your descendants.