Add parallel Print Page Options

Animals That Can Be Eaten

(Leviticus 11.1-47)

(A) Don't eat any disgusting animals.

4-5 You may eat the meat of cattle, sheep, and goats; wild sheep and goats; and gazelles, antelopes, and all kinds of deer. It is all right to eat meat from any animals that have divided hoofs and also chew the cud.[a]

But don't eat camels, rabbits, and rock badgers. These animals chew the cud but do not have divided hoofs. You must treat them as unclean. And don't eat pork, since pigs have divided hoofs, but they do not chew their cud. Don't even touch a dead pig!

You can eat any fish that has fins and scales. But there are other creatures that live in the water, 10 and if they do not have fins and scales, you must not eat them. Treat them as unclean.

11 You can eat any clean bird. 12-18 But don't eat the meat of any of the following birds: eagles, vultures, falcons, kites, ravens, ostriches, owls, sea gulls, hawks, pelicans, ospreys, cormorants, storks, herons, and hoopoes.[b] You must not eat bats. 19 Swarming insects are unclean, so don't eat them. 20 However, you are allowed to eat certain kinds of winged insects.[c]

21 (B) You belong to the Lord your God, so if you happen to find a dead animal, don't eat its meat. You may give it to foreigners who live in your town or sell it to foreigners who are visiting your town.

Don't boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. 14.6 chew the cud: Some animals that eat grass and leaves have more than one stomach, and they chew their food a second time, after it has been partly digested in the first stomach. This partly digested food is called “cud.”
  2. 14.12-18 eagles … hoopoes: Some of the birds in this list are difficult to identify.
  3. 14.20 certain kinds of winged insects: These were locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers; see Leviticus 11.21,22.

Do not eat any detestable thing.(A) These are the animals you may eat:(B) the ox, the sheep, the goat,(C) the deer,(D) the gazelle, the roe deer, the wild goat,(E) the ibex, the antelope and the mountain sheep.[a] You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a divided hoof you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the hyrax. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a divided hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you. The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses.(F)

Of all the creatures living in the water, you may eat any that has fins and scales. 10 But anything that does not have fins and scales you may not eat; for you it is unclean.

11 You may eat any clean bird. 12 But these you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, the black vulture, 13 the red kite, the black kite, any kind(G) of falcon,(H) 14 any kind of raven,(I) 15 the horned owl, the screech owl, the gull, any kind of hawk, 16 the little owl, the great owl, the white owl, 17 the desert owl,(J) the osprey, the cormorant, 18 the stork, any kind of heron, the hoopoe and the bat.

19 All flying insects are unclean to you; do not eat them. 20 But any winged creature that is clean you may eat.(K)

21 Do not eat anything you find already dead.(L) You may give it to the foreigner residing in any of your towns, and they may eat it, or you may sell it to any other foreigner. But you are a people holy to the Lord your God.(M)

Do not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.(N)

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Deuteronomy 14:5 The precise identification of some of the birds and animals in this chapter is uncertain.