'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth [is] Mine.

'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These [are] the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

'For I [am] the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I [am] holy.

"Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: 'You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God [am] holy.

" You shall not eat anything that dies [of itself;] you may give it to the alien who [is] within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you [are] a holy people to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

but as He who called you [is] holy, you also be holy in all [your] conduct,

because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."

" And every person who eats what died [naturally] or what was torn [by beasts, whether he is] a native of your own country or a stranger, he shall both wash his clothes and bathe in water, and be unclean until evening. Then he shall be clean.

"But if he does not wash [them] or bathe his body, then he shall bear his guilt."

'You shall therefore distinguish between clean animals and unclean, between unclean birds and clean, and you shall not make yourselves abominable by beast or by bird, or by any kind of living thing that creeps on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

'Whatever dies [naturally] or is torn [by beasts] he shall not eat, to defile himself with it: I [am] the LORD.

" You shall not eat anything that dies [of itself;] you may give it to the alien who [is] within your gates, that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner; for you [are] a holy people to the LORD your God. You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

So I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Indeed I have never defiled myself from my youth till now; I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts, nor has abominable flesh ever come into my mouth."

"The priests shall not eat anything, bird or beast, that died naturally or was torn [by wild beasts.]

But Peter said, "Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean."

"but that we write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols, [from] sexual immorality, [from] things strangled, and [from] blood.