Deuteronomy 13:6-10 commands the execution by stoning of any family member who entices Israel to follow other gods. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 says to separate from unbelievers and have no fellowship with them. But the same Bible commands love of neighbor and even love of enemies in Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:44, and Luke 6:27.
Proposed answers
People have answered this in several ways; GEBible presents them as equal peers.
6If 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 fathers;7of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near to you, or far off from you, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth—8you shall not consent to him nor listen to him; neither shall your eye pity him, neither shall you spare, neither shall you conceal him;9but you shall surely kill him. Your hand shall be first on him to put him to death, and afterwards the hands of all the people.10You shall stone him to death with stones, because he has sought to draw you away from Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
14Don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what fellowship do righteousness and iniquity have? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?15What agreement does Christ have with Belial? Or what portion does a believer have with an unbeliever?16What agreement does a temple of God have with idols? For you are a temple of the living God. Even as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them. I will be their God and they will be my people.”17Therefore “ ‘Come out from among them, and be separate,’ says the Lord. ‘Touch no unclean thing. I will receive you.
Love thy neighbor as thyself. Leviticus 19:18,
Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31,
Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9-10,
Galatians 5:14, James 2:8
Love your enemies. Matthew 5:44,
Luke 6:27
Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.
Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31
27He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
9For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other commandments there are, are all summed up in this saying, namely, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”10Love doesn’t harm a neighbor. Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement— a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Genuinely disputed among scholars
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The three answer-streams expose a tension that operates as much at the level of divine character as of legal text. Deuteronomy 13:6-10 commands that an Israelite execute even "thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom" who secretly entices to other gods — "thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him... and thou shalt stone him with stones." 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 commands separation: "be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers... come out from among them, and be ye separate." Against both stands the love command — Leviticus 19:18 ("love thy neighbor as thyself," reaffirmed in Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8) and Jesus' extension of it to enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27) and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31).
The strongest harmonization works the covenantal and genre angles. Paul Copan (*Is God a Moral Monster?*), Christopher Wright (*The God I Don't Understand*), and Norman Geisler argue that Deuteronomy 13 is a unique theocratic statute for Israel as a covenant-bound nation, not a perpetual ethical norm binding on individuals or on the church. Bernard Levinson and Jeffrey Tigay both situate it firmly within the ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaty tradition: in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon and earlier Hittite treaties, incitement to break loyalty to the suzerain — including the duty to report and even kill a family member who conspires against the great king — is a capital matter. Deuteronomy reframes YHWH as the divine suzerain and apostasy as treason; the death penalty fits that genre. On this reading, the Sinai covenant constituted a holy polity charged with maintaining cultic fidelity, whereas the new covenant in Christ shifts enforcement from the civil sword to persuasion, which is why the apostolic writings move to love-of-enemy ethics and limit "separation" (2 Corinthians 6) to cultic non-entanglement rather than hostility. This genre identification and the canonical distinction between theocratic civil law and church discipline have real merit and keep the texts from a flat contradiction.
Where the harmonization runs into difficulty is the moral-philosophical level. If "thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death" was ever the divinely right response to a family member's religious dissent, then either the moral standard changed or it was never absolute — and either horn strains the claim of a unified, immutable divine character. C. S. Cowles, in *Show Them No Mercy*, concedes the difficulty and takes a near-Marcionite route: Jesus reveals what God is truly like, and the Deuteronomic herem reflects accommodation to Iron Age categories rather than God's settled will. Eric Seibert, in *Disturbing Divine Behavior*, presses the same move further, distinguishing the "textual God" from the "actual God." The cost is explicit: the Deuteronomic author is conceded to have misrepresented God. Christopher Wright resists that concession and tries to hold both — Deuteronomy 13 was right then, the cross is right now — but this leaves a deity whose ethics are situationally relative, which is its own theological problem and does not so much resolve the contradiction as relocate it from the text to the doctrine of God.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction at the ethical level, partially masked by the covenantal-genre framing. The vassal-treaty identification and the theocracy/church distinction save the passages from direct collision, but only by conceding that what counts as faithful treatment of the unbeliever shifted from execution to love — a shift that the harmonization purchases at the price of either a changing or an accommodated divine ethic.
Sources for this reading
Bernard M. Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford University Press, 1997) on Deuteronomy 13Deuteronomy 13
Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary; Jewish Publication Society, 1996) on Deuteronomy 13:6-10Deuteronomy 13:6-10
Paul Copan, Is God a Moral Monster? (Baker, 2011) on the theocratic context of Deuteronomy 13Deuteronomy 13
Christopher J. H. Wright, The God I Don't Understand (Zondervan, 2008) on Old Testament law and divine character
Eric A. Seibert, Disturbing Divine Behavior (Fortress, 2009) on accommodation in violent Old Testament texts
C. S. Cowles et al., Show Them No Mercy: 4 Views on God and Canaanite Genocide (Zondervan, 2003) on the moral problem of commanded killing
Examining the tension
What follows is one scholar’s way of reading this disagreement — a critical-historical view that often concludes the texts genuinely disagree. It draws on the peer-reviewed sources listed below and stands as one position among the answers above, presented for transparency, not as GEBible’s position.
How critical scholarship weighs this: Genuinely disputed among scholars
This summarizes where critical scholarship tends to land on this tension — a report on the field’s center of gravity, not GEBible’s own ruling.
The three answer-streams expose a tension that operates as much at the level of divine character as of legal text. Deuteronomy 13:6-10 commands that an Israelite execute even "thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom" who secretly entices to other gods — "thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him... and thou shalt stone him with stones." 2 Corinthians 6:14-17 commands separation: "be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers... come out from among them, and be ye separate." Against both stands the love command — Leviticus 19:18 ("love thy neighbor as thyself," reaffirmed in Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8) and Jesus' extension of it to enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27) and the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31).
The strongest harmonization works the covenantal and genre angles. Paul Copan (*Is God a Moral Monster?*), Christopher Wright (*The God I Don't Understand*), and Norman Geisler argue that Deuteronomy 13 is a unique theocratic statute for Israel as a covenant-bound nation, not a perpetual ethical norm binding on individuals or on the church. Bernard Levinson and Jeffrey Tigay both situate it firmly within the ancient Near Eastern vassal-treaty tradition: in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon and earlier Hittite treaties, incitement to break loyalty to the suzerain — including the duty to report and even kill a family member who conspires against the great king — is a capital matter. Deuteronomy reframes YHWH as the divine suzerain and apostasy as treason; the death penalty fits that genre. On this reading, the Sinai covenant constituted a holy polity charged with maintaining cultic fidelity, whereas the new covenant in Christ shifts enforcement from the civil sword to persuasion, which is why the apostolic writings move to love-of-enemy ethics and limit "separation" (2 Corinthians 6) to cultic non-entanglement rather than hostility. This genre identification and the canonical distinction between theocratic civil law and church discipline have real merit and keep the texts from a flat contradiction.
Where the harmonization runs into difficulty is the moral-philosophical level. If "thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death" was ever the divinely right response to a family member's religious dissent, then either the moral standard changed or it was never absolute — and either horn strains the claim of a unified, immutable divine character. C. S. Cowles, in *Show Them No Mercy*, concedes the difficulty and takes a near-Marcionite route: Jesus reveals what God is truly like, and the Deuteronomic herem reflects accommodation to Iron Age categories rather than God's settled will. Eric Seibert, in *Disturbing Divine Behavior*, presses the same move further, distinguishing the "textual God" from the "actual God." The cost is explicit: the Deuteronomic author is conceded to have misrepresented God. Christopher Wright resists that concession and tries to hold both — Deuteronomy 13 was right then, the cross is right now — but this leaves a deity whose ethics are situationally relative, which is its own theological problem and does not so much resolve the contradiction as relocate it from the text to the doctrine of God.
Where the critical reading lands: genuine contradiction at the ethical level, partially masked by the covenantal-genre framing. The vassal-treaty identification and the theocracy/church distinction save the passages from direct collision, but only by conceding that what counts as faithful treatment of the unbeliever shifted from execution to love — a shift that the harmonization purchases at the price of either a changing or an accommodated divine ethic.
Sources for this reading