Leviticus 18:24

Warning against uncleanness and moral pollution

24 Do not make yourselves unclean in any of these ways because that is how the nations that I am throwing out before you became unclean.

Leviticus 18:24 Meaning and Commentary

Leviticus 18:24

Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things
In incestuous copulations and marriages, in adultery, corporeal and spiritual, and bestiality: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you;
that is, the seven nations of the land of Canaan, which God was about to eject out of their land to make room for the Israelites, and that on account of the above shocking vices which abounded among them; so that in some sense the land they dwelt upon was defiled by them, and called for vengeance on them, as even loathing its inhabitants, as afterwards suggested.

Leviticus 18:24 In-Context

22 You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice.

23 You will not have sexual relations with any animal, becoming unclean by it. Nor will a woman present herself before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.

24 Do not make yourselves unclean in any of these ways because that is how the nations that I am throwing out before you became unclean.

25 That is also how the land became unclean, and I held it liable for punishment, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.

26 But all of you must keep my rules and my regulations. You must not do any of these detestable things, neither citizen nor immigrant who lives with you (