Leviticus 20:10-27

Punishments for Sexual Immorality

10 "If a ¹man commits adultery with the wife of^[a] his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

11 ²If a man lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

12 ³If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed ⁴perversion; their blood is upon them.

13 ⁵If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

14 ⁶If a man takes a woman and her mother also, it is depravity; he and they shall be burned with fire, that there may be no depravity among you.

15 ⁷If a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.

16 ⁸If a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

17 ⁹"If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness, and he shall bear his iniquity.

18 ¹⁰If a man lies with a woman during her menstrual period and uncovers her nakedness, he has made naked her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

19 ¹¹You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or of your father's sister, for that is to make naked ¹²one's relative; they shall bear their iniquity.

20 ¹³If a man lies with his uncle's wife, he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness; they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.

21 ¹⁴If a man takes his brother's wife, it is impurity.^[b] He has uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless.

You Shall Be Holy

22 ¹⁵"You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not ¹⁶vomit you out.

23 ¹⁷And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.

24 But ¹⁸I have said to you, 'You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land ¹⁹flowing with milk and honey.' I am the LORD your God, ²⁰who has separated you from the peoples.

25 ²¹You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.

26 ²²You shall be holy to me, ²³for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

27 ²⁴"A man or a woman who is a medium or a necromancer shall surely be put to death. They shall be ²⁵stoned with stones; ²⁶their blood shall be upon them."

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Leviticus 20:10-27 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 20

In this chapter several laws are, repeated, enforced with a penalty annexed to them, and the breach them made capital, to deter from it, as giving seed to Molech, Le 20:1-5; going after such that have familiar spirits, or are wizards, Le 20:6; by shunning which, and other sins, a regard would be shown to holiness, Le 20:7,8; such as cursing parents, Le 20:9; committing adultery, Le 20:10; incestuous copulations, and marriages, and beastly actions, Le 20:11-21; all which it became the Israelites to avoid, lest, when come into the land of Canaan, they should be cast out of it, as the old inhabitants were for the same things, Le 20:22-24; and therefore, that they might appear to be a distinct people from others, they were to put a difference between clean and unclean creatures, Le 20:25,26; and the chapter is closed with a law, making it death for any person to have a familiar spirit, or to be a wizard, Le 19:27.

Taken from John Gill's Exposition of the Bible

Cross References 26

1. Leviticus 18:20; Deuteronomy 22:22; John 8:4, 5
2. See Leviticus 18:8
3. Leviticus 18:15
4. Leviticus 18:23
5. See Leviticus 18:22
6. Leviticus 18:17; Deuteronomy 27:23
7. Leviticus 18:23; Exodus 22:19; Deuteronomy 27:21
8. [See ver. 15 above]
9. Leviticus 18:9; Deuteronomy 27:22
10. Leviticus 18:19; [Leviticus 15:24]
11. Leviticus 18:12, 13
12. Leviticus 18:6
13. Leviticus 18:14
14. Leviticus 18:16
15. See Leviticus 18:4
16. Leviticus 18:25, 28
17. Leviticus 18:3, 24, 30; Deuteronomy 9:5
18. Exodus 3:17; Exodus 6:8
19. See Exodus 3:8
20. Exodus 33:16; 1 Kings 8:53">1 Kings 8:53; [Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6; Deuteronomy 14:2; 1 Kings 8:53">1 Kings 8:53]
21. See Leviticus 11:2-47; Deuteronomy 14:4-20
22. Exodus 19:6
23. ver. 7; See Leviticus 11:44
24. See Leviticus 19:31
25. ver. 2
26. ver. 9

Footnotes 2

[a]. Hebrew repeats if a man commits adultery with the wife of
[b]. Literally menstrual impurity

The English Standard Version is published with the permission of Good News Publishers.