“When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you
for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it,
you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground,
which you harvest from your land that the LORD your God is giving
you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the
place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell
there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time
and say to him, ‘I declare today to the LORD your God that I have
come into the land that the LORD swore to our fathers to give us.’
Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it
down before the altar of the LORD your God.
“And you shall make response before the LORD your God, ‘A
wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and
sojourned there, few in number, and there he became a nation,
great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly
and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. Then we cried to the
LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw
our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. And the LORD brought
us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with
great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. And he brought us
into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and
honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the
ground, which you, O LORD, have given me.’ And you shall set it
down before the LORD your God and worship before the LORD your God.
And you shall rejoice in all the good that the LORD your God has
given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the
sojourner who is among you.
“When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in
the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the
Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they
may eat within your towns and be filled, then you shall say before
the LORD your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my
house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner,
the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment
that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your
commandments, nor have I forgotten them. I have not eaten of the
tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was
unclean, or offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice
of the LORD my God. I have done according to all that you have
commanded me. Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and
bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as
you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.’
“This day the LORD your God commands you to do these statutes and
rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your
heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the LORD
is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his
statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his
voice. And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for
his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are
to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise
and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made,
and that you shall be a people holy to the LORD your God, as he
promised.”
