Leviticus 18:19-29

19 "Don't have sex with a woman during the time of her menstrual period when she is unclean.

20 "Don't have sex with your neighbor's wife and violate yourself by her.

21 "Don't give any of your children to be burned in sacrifice to the god Molech - an act of sheer blasphemy of your God. I am God.

22 "Don't have sex with a man as one does with a woman. That is abhorrent.

23 "Don't have sex with an animal and violate yourself by it. A woman must not have sex with an animal. That is perverse.

24 "Don't pollute yourself in any of these ways. This is how the nations became polluted, the ones that I am going to drive out of the land before you.

25 Even the land itself became polluted and I punished it for its iniquities - the land vomited up its inhabitants.

26 You must keep my decrees and laws - natives and foreigners both. You must not do any of these abhorrent things.

27 The people who lived in this land before you arrived did all these things and polluted the land.

28 And if you pollute it, the land will vomit you up just as it vomited up the nations that preceded you.

29 "Those who do any of these abhorrent things will be cut off from their people.

Leviticus 18:19-29 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO LEVITICUS 18

In this chapter the Israelites are directed in general not to imitate the customs and practices of the Egyptians and Canaanites, but to keep the ordinances, statutes, and judgments of the Lord, Le 18:1-5; and they are instructed particularly to avoid incestuous marriages, Le 18:6-18; carnal copulation with a menstruous woman, Le 18:19; adultery, Le 18:20; letting any of their seed pass through the fire to Molech, Le 18:21; sodomy, Le 18:22; and bestiality, Le 18:23; and they are deterred from these things by observing to them the pollution and destruction which they brought on the inhabitants of Canaan, and would bring the same on them should they commit them, Le 18:24-30.