Leviticus 18:16-26

16 '¹You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife; it is your brother's nakedness.

17 '²You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, nor shall you take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter, to uncover her nakedness; they are blood relatives. It is lewdness.

18 'You shall not marry a woman in addition to her sister as a rival while she is alive, to uncover her nakedness.

19 '³Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her ⁴menstrual impurity.

20 '⁵You shall not have intercourse * with your neighbor's wife, to be defiled with her.

21 'You shall not give any of your offspring ⁶to offer them to Molech, nor shall you ⁷profane the name of your God; I am the LORD.

22 '⁸You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

23 '⁹Also you shall not have intercourse with any animal to be defiled with it, nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.

24 'Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these ¹⁰the nations which I am casting out before * you have become defiled.

25 'For the land has become defiled, ¹¹therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land ¹²has spewed out its inhabitants.

26 'But as for you, you are to keep My statutes and My judgments and shall not do any * of these abominations, neither the native, nor the alien who sojourns among you

Leviticus 18:16-26 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.

Cross References

• 1. Leviticus 20:21
• 2. Leviticus 20:14
• 3. Leviticus 15:24; Leviticus 20:18
• 4. Leviticus 12:2
• 5. Leviticus 20:10; Proverbs 6:29; Matthew 5:27, 28; 1 Corinthians 6:9; Hebrews 13:4
• 6. Leviticus 20:2-5; Deuteronomy 12:31
• 7. Leviticus 19:12; Leviticus 20:3; Leviticus 21:6; Ezekiel 36:20; Malachi 1:12
• 8. Leviticus 20:13; Deut 23:18 mg; Romans 1:27
• 9. Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 20:15, 16; Deuteronomy 27:21
• 10. Leviticus 18:3; Deuteronomy 18:12
• 11. Leviticus 20:23; Deuteronomy 9:5; Deuteronomy 18:12
• 12. Leviticus 18:28; Leviticus 20:22

Footnotes

• [a] Or "wickedness"
• [b] Lit "take a wife"
• [c] Or "another"
• [d] Lit "to be"
• [e] Lit "cause to pass over"
• [f] Lit "those who lie"
• [g] Or "lie"
• [h] Lit "iniquity"