However, they had to acknowledge that the life of any animal killed for food belonged to God, doing so by pouring its blood out as water on the ground. This was like giving it back to God, not using it for one’s own purposes.​—De 12:15, 16.

Under the Mosaic Law. In the Law covenant made by Jehovah with the nation of Israel, he incorporated the law given to Noah. He made it clear that “bloodguilt” was attached to anyone who ignored the procedure stipulated by God’s law even in the killing of an animal. (Le 17:3, 4) The blood of an animal to be used for food was to be poured out on the ground and covered with dust. (Le 17:13, 14) Anyone who ate blood of any sort of flesh was to be ‘cut off from among his people.’ Deliberate violation of this law regarding the sacredness of blood meant being “cut off” in death.​—Le 17:10; 7:26, 27; Nu 15:30, 31.

Commenting on Leviticus 17:11, 12, M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia (1882, Vol. I, p. 834) says: “This strict injunction not only applied to the Israelites, but even to the strangers residing among them. The penalty assigned to its transgression was the being ‘cut off from the people,’ by which the punishment of death appears to be intended (comp. Heb. x, 28), although it is difficult to ascertain whether it was inflicted by the sword or by stoning.”

At Deuteronomy 14:21 allowance was made for selling to an alien resident or a foreigner an animal that had died of itself or that had been torn by a beast. Thus a distinction was made between the blood of such animals and that of animals that a person slaughtered for food. (Compare Le 17:14-16.) The Israelites, as well as alien residents who took up true worship and came under the Law covenant, were obligated to live up to the lofty requirements of that Law. People of all nations were bound by the requirement at Genesis 9:3, 4, but those under the Law were held by God to a higher standard in adhering to that requirement than were foreigners and alien residents who had not become worshipers of Jehovah.