Study Desk

You are not to have sexual intercourse with your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter, for they are your family.

You are not to have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s close relative.

“Do not defile yourselves by any of these practices, for the nations I am driving out before you have defiled themselves by all these things.

The land has become defiled, so I am punishing it for its iniquity, and the land will vomit out its inhabitants.

For the people who were in the land prior to you have committed all these detestable acts, and the land has become defiled.

Do not turn to idols or make cast images of gods for yourselves; I am the Lord your God.

Anyone who eats it will bear his iniquity, for he has profaned what is holy to the Lord. That person is to be cut off from his people.

Do not strip your vineyard bare or gather its fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the resident alien; I am the Lord your God.

“If a man has sexual intercourse with a woman who is a slave designated for another man, but she has not been redeemed or given her freedom, there must be punishment. They are not to be put to death, because she had not been freed.

The priest will make atonement on his behalf before the Lord with the ram of the guilt offering for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven for the sin he committed.

“When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, you are to consider the fruit forbidden. It will be forbidden to you for three years; it is not to be eaten.

But in the fifth year you may eat its fruit. In this way its yield will increase for you; I am the Lord your God.

You are not to make gashes on your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.

You will regard the alien who resides with you as the native-born among you. You are to love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

Consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.

You must not have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, for it is exposing one’s own blood relative; both people will bear their iniquity.

You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and I abhorred them.

Therefore you are to distinguish the clean animal from the unclean one, and the unclean bird from the clean one. Do not become contaminated by any land animal, bird, or whatever crawls on the ground; I have set these apart as unclean for you.

The Lord said to Moses: “Speak to Aaron’s sons, the priests, and tell them: A priest is not to make himself ceremonially unclean for a dead person among his relatives,

except for his immediate family: his mother, father, son, daughter, or brother.