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Leviticus 20

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And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

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Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones.

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And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.

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And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:

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Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.

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And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

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Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God.

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And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you.

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For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him.

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And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

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And the man that lieth with his father’s wife hath uncovered his father’s nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

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And if a man lie with his daughter in law, both of them shall surely be put to death: they have wrought confusion; their blood shall be upon them.

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If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

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And if a man take a wife and her mother, it is wickedness: they shall be burnt with fire, both he and they; that there be no wickedness among you.

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And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.

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And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.

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And if a man shall take his sister, his father’s daughter, or his mother’s daughter, and see her nakedness, and she see his nakedness; it is a wicked thing; and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people: he hath uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he shall bear his iniquity.

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And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.

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And thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister, nor of thy father’s sister: for he uncovereth his near kin: they shall bear their iniquity.

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And if a man shall lie with his uncle’s wife, he hath uncovered his uncle’s nakedness: they shall bear their sin; they shall die childless.

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And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

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Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.

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And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

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But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people.

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Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

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And ye shall be holy unto me: for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.

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A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.

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Leviticus 20

Chapter twenty provides the penalty framework for the violations described in chapters 18 and 19. The most severe penalties — death by stoning, burning, or cutting off — address the most fundamental covenant violations: child sacrifice to Molek, adultery, a man's sex with his father's wife or daughter-in-law, male same-sex intercourse, sex with both a woman and her mother, bestiality, and cursing parents. The death penalties for adultery and the various sexual violations are all bilateral — both parties are held responsible. Certain violations carry the lesser penalty of childlessness (the uncle's wife, the sister-in-law) rather than death, communicating a graduated range of sanctions. The theological grounding is stated three times: be holy, for I am holy; I have set you apart from the nations to be my own; you must make a distinction between clean and unclean animals. The chapter communicates that holiness is not optional sentiment but a covenant obligation with real consequences — the same holiness that produces the blessings of chapter 26 when honored produces the curses of chapter 26 when rejected.

Leviticus 20:1

The Lord said to Moses. Leviticus 20 provides the penalty framework for the violations addressed in the previous two chapters: where Leviticus 18 stated the prohibited practices and Leviticus 19 stated the positive ethical requirements, Leviticus 20 assigns specific penalties to the most serious violations. The chapter moves from the ethical description to the legal sanction. The penalties range from death to cut off to various degrees of community sanction. The severity of the penalties communicates the severity of the violations.

Leviticus 20:2

Say to the Israelites: any Israelite or any foreigner residing in Israel who sacrifices any of his children to Molek is to be put to death. The members of the community are to stone him. The child sacrifice penalty is the most severe in the chapter: death by stoning, carried out by the community. The stoning by the community members communicates that the covenant community bears collective responsibility for enforcing the most serious covenant violations. The community that permits child sacrifice in its midst becomes complicit in the abomination; the stoning that the community performs is the community's renunciation of that complicity.

Leviticus 20:3

I myself will set my face against him and will cut him off from his people; for by sacrificing his children to Molek, he has defiled my sanctuary and profaned my holy name. The divine first-person enforcement: I myself will set my face against him and cut him off. The divine response to child sacrifice is the profanation of the sanctuary and the holy name — child sacrifice defiles the holy space and profanes the holy name even if no human sanction is applied. The dual consequence (human stoning and divine cutting off) communicates the absolute nature of the prohibition: the community must enforce it, and God enforces it regardless of whether the community does.

Leviticus 20:4

If the members of the community close their eyes when that man sacrifices one of his children to Molek and if they fail to put him to death. The community's failure to enforce the child sacrifice prohibition is itself a sin: closing their eyes is the willful ignorance that enables the violation to continue. The failure of the community to enforce the covenant's most serious prohibitions creates communal guilt. The passive complicity of witness-silence is addressed alongside the active violation of child sacrifice.

Leviticus 20:5

I will set my face against him and his family and will cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves to Molek. The divine response to the community's passive complicity: God's face set against the violator and his family, and against all who follow him in the Molek worship. The family and community extension of the divine judgment communicates the corporate dimension of covenant violations: the family that enables child sacrifice and the community that tolerates it share in the divine opposition.

Leviticus 20:6

I will set my face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute themselves by following them, and I will cut them off from their people. The divine response to medium and spiritist consultation: the face set against, the cutting off. The prostituting themselves language (the same used for idolatry) communicates the covenantal adultery character of seeking unauthorized spiritual contact: it is the unfaithfulness of the covenant community to the God who alone has the authority to reveal what is hidden.

Leviticus 20:7

Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. The positive command in the middle of the penalty section: consecrate yourselves and be holy. The holiness call of Leviticus 19:2 is repeated here within the penalty framework of chapter 20. The penalties that surround this verse communicate the stakes of holiness: the community that fails to be holy faces the consequences that the penalties describe. But the call to holiness is not primarily about avoiding penalties — it is grounded in the identity of God: because I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 20:8

Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy. The keeping of the decrees and the identity of the God who makes holy — I am the Lord, who makes you holy — grounds the entire penalty framework in the divine purpose. God does not only command holiness; God makes holy. The penalties that the chapter describes are the consequences of rejecting the holiness that God offers. The God who makes holy is the God who also judges the rejection of holiness.

Leviticus 20:9

Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head. The death penalty for cursing parents addresses the violation of the parental honor command of Leviticus 19:3 and the Fifth Commandment. Matthew 15:4 records Jesus citing this verse when confronting the Pharisees who used corban to avoid supporting their parents. The their blood will be on their own head formula communicates that the death penalty is just: the violator bears responsibility for the consequence.

Leviticus 20:10

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife — with the wife of his neighbor — both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. The death penalty for adultery applies to both parties: the adulterer and the adulteress. The bilateral penalty communicates the equal responsibility of both parties in the violation. John 8:1–11 records the scribes and Pharisees bringing the woman caught in adultery to Jesus — but without the man, in violation of the equal-responsibility principle of Leviticus 20:10. Jesus' response challenges the selective application of the law.

Leviticus 20:11

If a man has sexual relations with his father's wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. The death penalty for sex with the father's wife — the violation of Leviticus 18:8 — applies to both parties. The dishonored his father framing connects the penalty to the parental honor requirement: the sexual violation of the father's wife is simultaneously a violation of the sexual ethics and a violation of the honor due to the father.

Leviticus 20:12

If a man has sexual relations with his daughter-in-law, both of them are to be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads. The death penalty for sex with the daughter-in-law (Leviticus 18:15) is also described as a perversion — tevel, the confusion of categories. The perversion designation for both the daughter-in-law violation and the bestiality violation (verse 15) identifies these as violations of the created order's proper categories. The blood-on-their-own-heads formula closes the penalty statement as it closed the adultery and father's-wife violations.

Leviticus 20:13

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. The death penalty for male same-sex intercourse (prohibited in Leviticus 18:22) is applied to both parties. The detestable evaluation is consistent with the Leviticus 18:22 evaluation. The bilateral penalty communicates the equal responsibility of both parties.

Leviticus 20:14

If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you. The death by burning for marrying a woman and her mother — the violation of Leviticus 18:17 — is described as wicked (zimah, the strongest negative evaluation in chapter 18). The burning in fire communicates the severity of the violation: the most severe method of execution for the most severe evaluation. The so that no wickedness will be among you communicates the community-protective purpose of the penalty.

Leviticus 20:15

If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he is to be put to death, and you must kill the animal. The death penalty for bestiality (Leviticus 18:23) applies to both the man and the animal. The killing of the animal communicates the animal's involvement in the violation even without moral responsibility: the animal that was used as the instrument of the perversion cannot remain in the community.

Leviticus 20:16

If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. The equal penalty for the woman who engages in bestiality — the bilateral prohibition of Leviticus 18:23 carries bilateral penalties. The blood-on-their-own-heads formula applies equally to the woman's violation as to the man's. The equal application of the penalties across gender communicates the equal accountability of the Holiness Code.

Leviticus 20:17

If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They are to be publicly removed from their people. He has dishonored his sister and will be held responsible. The penalty for sibling incest (Leviticus 18:9) — public removal from the people — is a disgrace, a category below the most severe penalties but still a covenant-level consequence. The public removal communicates the community's rejection of the violation: the sibling incest that is committed in private is publicly renounced through the public removal from the people.

Leviticus 20:18

If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them are to be cut off from their people. The cut off penalty for intentional sex during the menstrual period — the more severe response to what Leviticus 15:24 treated as inadvertent — communicates that the deliberate violation of the menstrual purity regulations is a covenant-level offense. The bilateral cut off applies to both parties: both the man who violates the regulation and the woman who permits the violation share the consequence.

Leviticus 20:19

Do not have sexual relations with the sister of either your mother or your father, for that would dishonor a close relative; both of you would be held responsible. The penalty for the aunt relationship violation (Leviticus 18:12–13): both parties are held responsible. The dishonor a close relative framing communicates the harm done to the family structure. The mutual responsibility communicates that the prohibited sexual relationships require active participation by both parties and both bear the consequence.

Leviticus 20:20

If a man has sexual relations with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible; they will die childless. The uncle's-wife violation (Leviticus 18:14) carries the penalty of dying childless — not death but the loss of the covenant's primary blessing. The childless penalty communicates a different category of consequence: not immediate death but the denial of the generational continuation that the covenant community values as one of God's greatest blessings. The childless consequence for a sexual violation within the extended family communicates the self-defeating character of incest: it destroys the very family structure it violates.

Leviticus 20:21

If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless. The sister-in-law violation (Leviticus 18:16) also carries the childless penalty. The dishonored his brother framing parallels the dishonored his uncle of verse 20: both violations harm the family member whose wife is involved. The childless consequence for both the aunt-by-marriage and sister-in-law violations communicates the consistent principle: the violation of marriage boundaries within the extended family carries the self-defeating consequence of childlessness.

Leviticus 20:22

Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. The closing exhortation connects the penalties of chapter 20 to the land-vomiting warning of Leviticus 18:28. The penalties that the chapter has assigned to the various violations are not only for the protection of individuals but for the protection of the land: the land that will receive Israel is the land that vomited out the Canaanites for the same violations. Israel's holiness protects the land as much as it protects the individuals.

Leviticus 20:23

You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. The nations that preceded Israel in the land are not neutral alternatives to the covenant community's way of life: God abhorred them for practicing the violations that Leviticus 18–20 prohibits. The abhorrence of God toward the nations' practices is the ground of their expulsion. Israel is warned: follow the same practices and the same abhorrence follows.

Leviticus 20:24

But I said to you, you will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations. The positive promise grounds the prohibitions: the land flowing with milk and honey is the inheritance of the community that maintains the distinctions the chapter has required. The I am the Lord your God, who has set you apart from the nations grounds the entire ethical framework of Leviticus 18–20 in the election and calling of the covenant community: Israel is set apart, and that election carries the responsibility of the distinctive ethics of the chapters that preceded this verse.

Leviticus 20:25

You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground — those that I have set apart as unclean for you. The dietary distinctions of Leviticus 11 are revisited at the close of the penalty chapter: the distinction between clean and unclean animals is the material daily practice of the same distinction-making capacity that the sexual ethics and the holiness code require. The community that distinguishes clean from unclean in what it eats is the community being formed to distinguish holy from common in every dimension of its life.

Leviticus 20:26

You are to be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own. The summary of the Holiness Code's central chapters: be holy because I am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations. The election and the holiness command are inseparable: Israel is set apart, and the set-apartness requires the holiness that the preceding chapters have defined. The I am holy formula closes the chapter and the extended section as it opened it: the ground of Israel's holiness is the holiness of the God who claims them as his own.

Leviticus 20:27

A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you is to be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads. The final penalty of the chapter — death by stoning for mediums and spiritists — revisits the prohibition of Leviticus 19:31. The chapter that opened with the death penalty for child sacrifice closes with the death penalty for unauthorized spiritual contact: both violations are attempts to access divine power outside the covenant's authorized channels. 1 Samuel 28:3 records Saul's earlier expulsion of mediums and spiritists from the land, and 1 Samuel 28:7–8 records his desperate violation of that prohibition on the night before his death.