Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord. The body-cutting prohibition addresses mourning rites that involved lacerating the skin as an expression of grief; the tattoo prohibition addresses the permanent marking of the body with signs associated with pagan religious identity. Both prohibitions protect the covenant community's bodies from practices associated with other religious systems. I am the Lord grounds the body ethics: the body that belongs to the Lord is not marked with the signs of other gods.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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