Deuteronomy 13:8

לֹא־תֹאבֶה לוֹ וְלֹא תִשְׁמַע אֵלָיו וְלֹא־תָחוֹס עֵֽינְךָ עָלָיו וְלֹֽא־תַחְמֹל וְלֹֽא־תְכַסֶּה עָלָֽיו׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

לֹא־תֹאבֶ֣ה ל֔וֹ וְלֹ֥א תִשְׁמַ֖ע אֵלָ֑יו וְלֹא־תָח֤וֹס עֵֽינְךָ֙ עָלָ֔יו וְלֹֽא־תַחְמֹ֥ל וְלֹֽא־תְכַסֶּ֖ה עָלָֽיו׃

Greek (Septuagint)

οὐ συνθελήσεις αὐτῷ καὶ οὐκ εἰσακούσῃ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐ φείσεται ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ἐπ’ αὐτῷ, οὐκ ἐπιποθήσεις ἐπ’ αὐτῷ οὐδ’ οὐ μὴ σκεπάσῃς αὐτόν.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

non acquiescas ei, nec audias, neque parcat ei oculus tuus ut miserearis et occultes eum,

Spanish

no lo consentirás ni lo escucharás; ni tu ojo se apiadará de él, ni lo perdonarás, ni lo ocultarás;

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

No consentirás con él, ni le darás oído; ni tu ojo le perdonará, ni tendrás compasión, ni lo encubrirás:

English

you must not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity, and do not spare him or shield him.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Deuteronomy 13:8 lists a series of five prohibitions describing how one must not respond to a person who incites to worship other gods (referred to in the preceding verses). Each clause uses a negated verb in the second-person masculine singular, forming a cumulative rhetorical structure of refusal.

Key words

to.Veh ("you will yield", H0014) — qal imperfect, 2ms; describes an inner disposition of consent or agreement toward someone, negated to forbid that consent.
tish.Ma' ("you will listen", H8085G) — qal imperfect, 2ms; denotes attentive hearing/obeying, here forbidden with the preposition 'e.Lav ("to him", H0413 + suffix).
ta.Chos ("it will look with pity", H2347) — qal imperfect, 3fs; the subject is grammatically feminine because its subject is 'ei.ne.kha ("your eye", H5869A construct + suffix), producing the idiom "your eye shall not pity."
tach.Mol ("you will spare", H2550) — qal imperfect, 2ms; expresses withholding of mercy or leniency toward the person in question.
te.kha.Seh ("you will cover", H3680) — piel imperfect, 2ms; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense "cover," here meaning to conceal or shield the person from consequence.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of five clauses, each opening with the negation lo' ("not", H3808) followed by an imperfect verb referring to the addressee (second-person masculine singular), except for the third clause where the grammatical subject shifts to 'ei.ne.kha ("your eye"), governing the feminine verb ta.Chos. This creates a brief personification: it is "the eye" that pities, not the person directly, though the meaning points to the same addressee's internal reaction. Each verb targets a different faculty or action — consent (to.Veh), attention/obedience (tish.Ma'), visual/emotional pity (ta.Chos), sparing (tach.Mol), and concealment (te.kha.Seh) — building a comprehensive prohibition covering emotional, verbal, and active responses toward the individual described earlier in the chapter. The repeated conjunction ve ("and", H9002) linking each clause gives the verse a cumulative, escalating rhythm in the Hebrew that is somewhat flattened in translations using semicolons or "nor."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the fourth clause differently, using ἐπιποθήσεις ("you shall desire/long for") where the Hebrew has tach.Mol ("you will spare", H2550), producing a divergent nuance — desire versus sparing/mercy. The Vulgate's parcat...ut misereris ("let your eye not spare... so that you pity him") merges the third and fourth Hebrew clauses (ta.Chos and tach.Mol) into a single result clause, differing from the Hebrew's five discrete parallel prohibitions.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.