Deuteronomy 15:19-23
The Lord's people must not treat the firstborn of their flocks and herds as ordinary gain, but must consecrate them to Him, rejoice before Him, and guard worship from blemished offering or blood-profane practice.
19 You shall dedicate all the firstborn males that are born of your herd and of your flock to Yahweh your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock.
20 You shall eat it before Yahweh your God year by year in the place which Yahweh shall choose, you and your household.
21 If it has any defect—is lame or blind, or has any defect whatever, you shall not sacrifice it to Yahweh your God.
22 You shall eat it within your gates. The unclean and the clean shall eat it alike, as the gazelle and as the deer.
23 Only you shall not eat its blood. You shall pour it out on the ground like water.
The LORD's people must not treat the firstborn of their flocks and herds as ordinary gain, but must consecrate them to Him, rejoice before Him, and guard worship from blemished offering or blood-profane practice.
Moses commands Israel to set apart every firstborn male from the herd and flock to the LORD, refusing to use such animals for ordinary labor or profit, and eating them before the LORD at His chosen place. The passage also clarifies that blemished firstborn animals may be eaten locally as common meat, but may not be offered sacrificially, and that blood must never be eaten but poured out like water.
This instruction is given to Israel on the plains of Moab before entry into the land. It assumes Israel's settled agricultural and pastoral life, where herds and flocks will multiply under the LORD's provision and where worship will be ordered around the place the LORD chooses for His Name.
The Year of Release: Debt, Poverty, and the Generosity of a People Who Remember Egypt
The covenant community economic life must be shaped by the same grace it has received the seven-year debt release and the release of Hebrew slaves are not merely humanitarian policies but covenant practices that embody the LORD own character a God who releases the enslaved who commands open-handed generosity even when the release year approaches and who insists that there need be no poor among his people if they keep his word and lend generously remembering that they were slaves in Egypt whom the LORD released.