Deuteronomy 12:31

The context

Deuteronomy 12 legislates a single place of worship and warns against adopting the practices of the peoples being displaced. The prohibition is grounded in what those peoples are said to do for their gods, and the verse names child sacrifice as the extreme case. The following chapter takes up false prophets who would lead Israel toward the same practices.

What it establishes

The verse forbids Israel to imitate the cultic practices of the surrounding nations and singles out the sacrifice of children as the thing God hates. It establishes a boundary between Israel's worship and the worship it is displacing.

What it does not establish

It does not give an objective account of those religions. The verse is polemic inside a legal code, shaped by its argument. It does not say how widespread the practices were, what Molech named, or whether every charge reflects the cult.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• The God of the Old Testament a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, and a homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
• So you believe in a book full of contradictions, one that endorses slavery, incest, murder, drowning babies, genocide and stoning homosexuals?

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.