Passage

Deuteronomy 12.31

"You shall not behave thus toward the LORD your God, for every abominable act which the LORD hates they have done for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods." (Deuteronomy 12:31, NASB95)

The verse stands as YHWH's blanket prohibition of Canaanite worship practices, naming child sacrifice as the paradigm "abomination" (Hebrew toebah) the surrounding nations rendered to their gods. The verse is load-bearing in the apologetic-defeater pattern against critics who allege the biblical God endorses child sacrifice: YHWH does not merely permit Israel to refrain from Molech worship, he explicitly identifies what the gods of the nations require as what he hates.

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV (ASV)

"29. When Jehovah thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest in to dispossess them, and thou dispossessest them, and dwellest in their land; 30. take heed to thyself that thou be not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise."

"31. Thou shalt not do so unto Jehovah thy God: for every abomination to Jehovah, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods."

"32. What thing soever I command you, that shall ye observe to do: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." (Deuteronomy 12:29-32, ASV)

WEB (WEB)

"29. When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations from before you, where you go in to dispossess them, and you dispossess them, and dwell in their land; 30. be careful that you are not ensnared to follow them, after that they are destroyed from before you; and that you not inquire after their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do likewise.”"

"31. You shall not do so to Yahweh your God; for every abomination to Yahweh, which he hates, have they done to their gods; for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods."

"32. Whatever thing I command you, that you shall observe to do. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it." (Deuteronomy 12:29-32, WEB)

KJV (KJV)

"29. When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; ^{succeedest: Heb. inheritest, or, possessest them} 30. Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. ^{by: Heb. after them}"

"31. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. ^{to the: Heb. of the}"

"32. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it." (Deuteronomy 12:29-32, KJV)

YLT (YLT)

"29. 'When Jehovah thy God doth cut off the nations, whither thou art going in to possess them, from thy presence, and thou hast possessed them, and hast dwelt in their land, 30. take heed to thee, lest thou be snared after them, after their being destroyed out of thy presence, and lest thou enquire about their gods, saying, How do these nations serve their gods, and I do so, even I?"

"31. 'Thou dost not do so to Jehovah thy God; for every abomination of Jehovah which He is hating they have done to their gods, for even their sons and their daughters they burn with fire to their gods."

"32. The whole thing which I am commanding you, it ye observe to do; thou dost not add unto it, nor diminish from it." (Deuteronomy 12:29-32, YLT)

Setting

Speaker: Moses, in the third of his four farewell sermons recorded by the Deuteronomic narrator
Audience: the second-generation Israelites poised to cross the Jordan and dispossess the Canaanite nations
Location: plains of Moab, east of the Jordan, in view of the promised land
Time period: events c. 1406 BC, immediately before the conquest; traditional Mosaic authorship places composition in the same window

Theological reading

The verse sits at the climax of Deuteronomy 12, the chapter that establishes centralized worship at "the place the LORD will choose." After commanding the destruction of every Canaanite altar, pillar, and Asherah pole (verses 2 to 3), Moses anticipates a subtler temptation: the Israelites may keep YHWH as their God but adopt Canaanite ritual methods. Verse 30 frames the danger as syncretism: "How do these nations serve their gods, that I also may do likewise?" The answer in verse 31 is categorical. The pagan cult is not a neutral form that can be reverently transferred to YHWH; it is intrinsically toebah (abomination) because of its content, and child sacrifice is the headline example.

The verse is decisive for the apologetic question of whether YHWH endorses, accepts, or even tolerates child sacrifice. Three texts in the Mosaic legislation form a tight cluster against the practice: this verse, Leviticus 18.21 ("you shall not give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech"), and Deuteronomy 18.10 ("there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire"). Later narrative consistently treats apostate kings who do practice it as guilty: 2 Kings 16.3 (Ahaz), 2 Kings 21:6 (Manasseh), and Jeremiah 7.31 (where YHWH declares Topheth child sacrifice "I did not command, nor did it come into My mind"). The Jeremiah verse is the strongest internal-canonical disclaimer of the alleged endorsement.

This grounds the standard apologetic response to three popular objections. (1) The Akedah (Genesis 22): YHWH stops the sacrifice and provides a substitute ram; the test was Abraham's faith, not a sacrifice God required. (2) Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11): the narrative is recorded but never approved; Judges' editorial frame ("in those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes") classifies it as moral failure, and many interpreters read the vow as devoted service rather than literal sacrifice. (3) Ezekiel 20:25 to 26 ("I gave them statutes that were not good"): this is YHWH's judicial handing-over of an idolatrous people to the consequences of the false worship they preferred, not a divine endorsement of the practice the prior law repeatedly anathematized.

The wider apologetic pattern is what ris3n's defeater pages call the YHWH-vs-the-gods-of-the-nations contrast: where pagan deities require what the Bible identifies as moral atrocity, YHWH explicitly forbids it. The Torah's prohibition is not late liberal squeamishness imposed on a primitive religion; it is the chapter's primary contrast point.

Key words

H3068 - YHWH, YHWH (Strong's H3068). The covenant name; YHWH is the explicit subject of "hates" in this verse.
H0430 - elohim, elohim (Strong's H430). Used here both for YHWH ("the LORD your God") and for the rival gods of the nations.
toebah (Strong's H8441), the "abomination" word, the strongest moral-revulsion term in Deuteronomy; lexicon entry pending.

Theological themes

YHWH versus the gods of the nations. The verse's structural contrast: what pagan deities require is what YHWH hates.
Child sacrifice as paradigmatic abomination. The text names the specific atrocity as the headline reason the Canaanite cult is anathema.
Syncretism prohibition. The setting is not initial conquest but post-conquest temptation to adopt pagan methods of worshipping YHWH.
Apologetic-defeater anchor. The verse, together with Leviticus 18:21 and Jeremiah 7:31, supplies the explicit canonical disclaimer against the "biblical God endorses child sacrifice" objection.
Moral realism in Torah. The text presupposes that some acts are intrinsically abominable, not merely culturally disapproved.

Cross-references

Leviticus 18.21: parallel prohibition naming Molech.
Deuteronomy 18.10: prohibition against making sons or daughters pass through the fire.
2 Kings 16.3: Ahaz of Judah burns his son as a Canaanite-style act of apostasy.
Jeremiah 7.31: YHWH disclaims ever commanding child sacrifice at Topheth.
Genesis 22: the Akedah, where YHWH stops the sacrifice and substitutes the ram.

Quoted in

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.