The Holiness Code begins, and it opens with a demand that could not survive a move into a settled country: anyone who kills an ox, lamb or goat must bring it to the door of the tent, or be cut off. Read literally that abolishes ordinary butchery — and Deuteronomy 12 will later permit exactly what this chapter forbids, keeping only the blood restriction. Verse 7 gives the reason for the rule: so that Israel will stop sacrificing to the se'irim, a word our four translations render four different ways. And then verse 11 supplies the sentence the whole book has been assuming without stating — the life of the flesh is in the blood, and that is why it is given on the altar and why it may not be eaten.