Punishment for Worshiping Other Gods
Deuteronomy 13If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, “Let’s go after other gods” (which you have not known) “and let’s serve them,” you must not listen to the words of that prophet, or to that dreamer of dreams. For YHWH your* God is testing y’all to learn whether y’all love YHWH your* God with your* whole heart and with your* whole soul. Y’all must follow YHWH your* God, fear ʜɪᴍ, keep ʜɪꜱ commandments, and obey ʜɪꜱ voice. Y’all are to serve ʜɪᴍ and cling to ʜɪᴍ. That prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, must be put to death, because he has spoken rebellion against YHWH y’all’s God, who brought y’all out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to draw you aside out of the way which YHWH your God commanded you to walk in. So you must remove the evil from among you.
If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son, or your daughter, or the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, entices you secretly, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods”—which you have not known, you, nor your ancestors; of the gods of the peoples who are around y’all, near you or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth— you must not yield to him nor listen to him. Do not let your eye pity him, and do not spare or you conceal him. Instead, you must execute-execute him. Your hand is to be first on him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people. You must stone him to death with stones, because he has sought to draw you away from YHWH your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. All Israel will hear, and fear, and they will not do any more wickedness like this among you.
If you hear about one of your cities, which YHWH your God gives you to dwell there, that certain wicked fellows have gone out from among you and have drawn away the inhabitants of their city, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods,” which y’all have not known, then you are to inquire, investigate, and ask diligently. If it is true and established that such abomination was done among you, you must strike-strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, with all that is therein and its livestock, with the edge of the sword. You are to gather all its plunder into the middle of its street, and the city burn with fire, with all of its plunder, to YHWH your God. It is to be a heap forever. It must not be built again. Nothing of the devoted thing is to cling to your hand, that YHWH may turn from the fierceness of his anger and show you mercy, and have compassion on you and multiply you, as he has sworn to your fathers, when you listen to the voice of YHWH your God, to keep all his commandments which I command you today, to do that which is right in YHWH your God’s eyes.