There are many references in the Bible to the practice.

The elders of Moab and Midian came to Balaam "with the rewards of divination in their hand" (Numbers xxii, 7).

Joseph's cup of divination was found in Benjamin's sack (Genesis xliv, 5, 12); and in Ezekiel (xxi, 21) the King of Babylon stood at the parting of the way and looked in the liver.

Hepatoscopy was also practiced by the Etruscans, and from them it passed to the Greeks and the Romans, among whom it degenerated into a more or less meaningless form.

But Jastrow states that in Babylonia and Assyria, where for several thousand years the liver was consistently employed as the sole organ of divination, there are no traces of the rite having fallen into decay, or having been abused by the priests.
In Roman times, Philostratus gives an account of the trial of Apollonius of Tyana,( 16) accused of human hepatoscopy by sacrificing a boy in the practice of magic arts against the Emperor.