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Leviticus 18

1Yahweh spoke to Moses: 2“Speak to the sons of Israel and tell them: I am Yahweh your God. 3You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, or as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You must not walk in their statutes. 4You must carry out my judgments and keep my statutes, walking in them. I am Yahweh your God. 5You must keep my statutes and my judgments; the person who carries them out will live by them. I am Yahweh.

6“None of you may approach any close relative to uncover nakedness. I am Yahweh. 7You must not uncover your father’s nakedness and your mother’s nakedness. She is your mother; you must not uncover her nakedness. 8You must not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness. 9As for the nakedness of your sister, your father’s daughter or your mother’s daughter, whether born in the household or outside it—you must not uncover their nakedness. 10You must not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; their nakedness is your own. 11As for the nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter, born to your father—she is your sister; you must not uncover her nakedness. 12You must not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s close relative. 13You must not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative. 14You must not uncover your father’s brother’s nakedness. You must not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15You must not uncover your daughter-in-law’s nakedness. She is your son’s wife; you must not uncover her nakedness. 16You must not uncover your brother’s wife’s nakedness; it is your brother’s nakedness. 17You must not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter. You must not take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are her close relatives. It is depravity. 18You must not take a woman together with her sister as a rival, uncovering her nakedness alongside her while she is alive.

19“You must not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual uncleanness. 20You must not lie with your neighbor’s wife for intercourse, making yourself unclean with her. 21You must not give any of your offspring to be passed over to Molech, and you must not profane the name of your God. I am Yahweh. 22You must not lie with a male as one lies with a woman. It is a detestable thing. 23You must not lie with any animal, making yourself unclean with it. A woman must not stand before an animal for it to mate with her. It is a perversion.

24“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you have made themselves unclean. 25The land became unclean, and I called it to account for its iniquity, so that the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26But you must keep my statutes and my judgments. You must not do any of these detestable things, whether native-born or a resident foreigner living among you, 27because the people of the land who were before you did all these detestable things, and the land became unclean. 28Then the land will not vomit you out for making it unclean, as it vomited out the nation before you. 29For anyone who does any of these detestable things—the persons who do them must be cut off from among their people. 30You must keep my charge, so that you do not practice any of the detestable customs practiced before you, and do not make yourselves unclean by them. I am Yahweh your God.”

Translation notes 6

18:4–5 — Walk; live. Walking in God’s statutes is an image for conducting one’s life by them. The promise is that the person who does them will live by them. The draft does not add an account of eternal life or recast the wording through later biblical arguments.

18:6–17 — Uncover nakedness. This repeated expression refers here to forbidden sexual relations; it is not merely a rule about seeing an unclothed body. The draft retains the bodily image, including the relations between one family member’s nakedness and another’s. “Close relative” represents “flesh of one’s flesh.” Some pronouns shift in number; verse 9 says “their nakedness,” and verse 17 has singular “her nakedness.”

18:17–18 — Take; sister; rival. “Take” in this setting concerns taking a woman as a sexual partner or wife. The immediate family list supports taking “her sister” literally in verse 18. Some understand “a woman to her sister” more broadly as one woman in addition to another, making the command a prohibition of rival wives generally. The draft retains the sister reading and the qualification “while she is alive.”

18:20–21 — Intercourse; offspring; Molech. Verse 20 uses an expression involving lying and seed, followed by the same word “seed” in verse 21 for offspring. “Passed over” retains the unusual wording of the Molech rite. Child sacrifice is a major interpretation; the precise rite and whether the designation names a deity or a type of offering remain disputed. The draft does not insert “through fire,” which is not stated in this verse.

18:22 — Male; woman. Literally, “with a male you must not lie the lyings of a woman.” The draft understands this as a prohibition of male sexual intercourse corresponding to intercourse with a woman. The text names an act, not a modern category of sexual identity. It does not expressly restrict the male to a boy, a prostitute, or a coercive partner. The unusual phrase’s precise scope is debated.

18:24–30 — Unclean land; vomiting; cut off. These offenses are said to make the land unclean, and the land is pictured vomiting out its inhabitants. The draft retains the force of both images. The warning also applies to Israel and the resident foreigner. The severe “cut off” formula does not specify its mechanism here.