Dunk's Bible Palace

The Motif Searcher: one word across the Douay, the Latin, the Greek and the Hebrew.

Deuteronomy 13:2

And that come to pass which he spoke, and he say to thee: Let us go and follow strange gods, which thou knowest not, and let us serve them:

Open Deuteronomy 13:2 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →

The verse in its languages

Vulgate (Clementine)
et evenerit quod locutus est, et dixerit tibi : Eamus, et sequamur deos alienos quos ignoras, et serviamus eis :
Septuagint (Swete)
καὶ ἔλθῃ τὸ σημεῖον ἢ τὸ τέρας ὃ ἐλάλησεν πρὸς σὲ λέγων Πορευθῶμεν καὶ λατρεύσωμεν θεοῖς ἑτέροις οὓς οὐκ οἴδατε·
Hebrew (WLC) shown from Deuteronomy 13:3
וּבָ֤א הָאוֹת֙ וְהַמּוֹפֵ֔ת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּ֥ר אֵלֶ֖יךָ לֵאמֹ֑ר נֵֽלְכָ֞ה אַחֲרֵ֨י אֱלֹהִ֧ים אֲחֵרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹֽא יְדַעְתָּ֖ם וְנָֽעָבְדֵֽם

Haydock's commentary

To pass. The completion of a prophecy does not always prove, that the person who uttered it was a true prophet. Chance, a knowledge of natural causes, &c., may enable an impostor sometimes to hit upon the truth. God may also, for reasons known to himself, declare what will come to pass by the mouth of a false prophet, or of a wicked man, as he did by Balaam and Caiphas. Judas wrought miracles before his apostacy. (Calmet)

Yet if any who had been so highly favoured, should attempt to enforce by their preceding miracles, any false doctrine, let him be anathema, Galatians i. 8.

Not. The Hebrews had inconvertible proofs of the existence of one God. They could not therefore acknowledge any other. (Haydock)

Novelty in religion is a mark of idolatry or of heresy. (Worthington)

From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.

The Fathers on this verse

Origen Origen Against Celsus, Chapter LIII

All the arguments, indeed, which this Jew of Celsus advances against those who believe on Jesus, may, by parity of reasoning, be urged as ground of accusation against Moses: so that there is no difference in asserting that the sorcery practised by Jesus and that by Moses were similar to each other, both of them, so far as the language of this Jew of Celsus is concerned, being liable to the same charge; as, e.g., when this Jew says of Christ, “But, O light and truth! Jesus with his own voice expressly declares, as you yourselves have recorded, that there will appear among you others also, who will perform miracles like mine, but who are wicked men and sorcerers,” some one, either Greek or Egyptian, or any other party who disbelieved the Jew, might say respecting Moses, “But, O light and truth! Moses with his own voice expressly declares, as ye also have recorded, that there will appear am …

St Athanasius Letters of Athanasius with Two Ancient Chronicles of His Life, (For 341.) Coss. Marcellinus, Probinus; Præf. Longinus; Indict. xiv; Easter-day, xiii Kal. Maii, xxiv Pharmuthi; Æra Dioclet. 57

7. ‘But evil-doers and sorcerers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.’ If therefore, like those expounders of dreams and false prophets who professed to give signs, these ignorant men being drunk, not with wine, but with their own wickedness, make a profession of priesthood, and glory in their threats, believe them not; but since we are tried, let us humble ourselves, not being drawn away by them. For so God warned His people by Moses, saying, ‘If there shall rise up among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and shall give signs and tokens, and the sign or the token shall come to pass which he spake to thee, saying, Let us go and serve strange gods, which ye have not known; ye shall not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. …

St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII, Chapter XIV. How God makes trial of the strength of man's will by means of his temptations

And this too we read that the Divine righteousness provided for in the case of Job His well tried athlete, when the devil had challenged him to single combat. For if he had advanced against his foe, not with his own strength, but solely with the protection of God’s grace; and, supported only by Divine aid without any virtue of patience on his own part, had borne that manifold weight of temptations and losses, contrived with all the cruelty of his foe, how would the devil have repeated with some justice that slanderous speech which he had previously uttered: “Doth Job serve God for nought? Hast Thou not hedged him in, and all his substance round about? but take away thine hand,” i.e., allow him to fight with me in his own strength, “and he will curse Thee to Thy face.” But as after the struggle the slanderous foe dare not give vent to any such murmur as this, he admired that he was vanqui …

St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part II. Containing Conferences XI-XVII, Chapter I. Discourse of Abbot Nesteros on the threefold system of gifts

After evening service we sat down together on the mats as usual ready for the promised narration: and when we had kept silence for some little time out of reverence for the Elder, he anticipated the silence of our respect by such words as these. The previous order of our discourse had brought us to the exposition of the system of spiritual gifts, which we have learnt from the tradition of the Elders is a threefold one. The first indeed is for the sake of healing, when the grace of signs accompanies certain elect and righteous men on account of the merits of their holiness, as it is clear that the apostles and many of the saints wrought signs and wonders in accordance with the authority of the Lord Who says: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” The second when for the edification of the church or on account of the fait …

The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).