Deuteronomy 13

1 “And if a prophet rises up among you, or someone who dreams a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder he told you about comes true, and he says, ‘Let us go and serve other gods, whom you have not known’ — 3 you are not to listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of a dream; because the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul. [a] 4 You are to follow the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commands, and listen to his voice, and attach yourselves to him. 5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream, is to die, because he has spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, who ransomed you out of slavery, to push you off the way the Lord your God commanded you to walk in. So you are to burn the evil out from among you.

6 And if your brother, by your father or your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife in your arms, or the friend who is your own equal, begs you in secret and says, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ — gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, 7 gods of the nations around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other — 8 you are not to agree with him and you are not to listen to him. Your eye is not to spare him, you are to feel no regret for him, and you are not to shield him at all. 9 You are certainly to report him. Your own hands are to be on him first to put him to death, and the hands of all the people last. 10 And they are to stone him with stones and he is to die, because he tried to draw you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 11 And all Israel will hear it and be afraid, and they will not do such an evil thing among you again.

12 And if in one of your cities, which the Lord your God is giving you to live in, you hear it said, 13 ‘Worthless men have gone out from among you and have made all the people of their city fall away, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, whom you have not known’ — 14 then you are to look into it and ask and search carefully. And if it is clearly true, and this detestable thing has been done among you, 15 then you are to destroy completely everyone living in that city with the edge of the sword. You are to set it apart for destruction, and everything in it. [b] 16 And all its plunder you are to gather into its open square, and you are to burn the city with fire, and all its plunder, out in the open before the Lord your God; and it is to be a ruin forever, and never rebuilt. 17 And nothing of what has been set apart is to stick to your hand — so that the Lord may turn from his fierce anger and show you mercy and pity you and make you many, as he swore to your fathers, 18 if you will listen to the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commands, all that I charge you with today, and to do what is good and pleasing before the Lord your God.” [c]