Leviticus 18

Do Not Follow the Practices of Egypt and Canaan

1The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Speak to the Israelites and say to them: I am the LORD your God. 3You will not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you will not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. You will not walk in their statutes. 4You will do my ordinances and keep my statutes, walking in them. I am the LORD your God. 5You will keep my statutes and my ordinances; the person who does them will live by them. I am the LORD.

Forbidden Kinship Relations

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

Other Forbidden Relations

19You will not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in the uncleanness of her menstrual period. 20You will not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife, becoming unclean with her. 21You will not give any of your offspring to be passed over to Molech, and you will not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD. 22You will not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is a detestable thing. 23You will not have sexual relations with any animal, becoming unclean with it. A woman will not stand before an animal to mate with it; it is a perversion.

Do Not Defile the Land

24Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these things the nations I am driving out before you became unclean. 25The land became unclean, and I visited its guilt upon it, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26But you will keep my statutes and my ordinances and will not do any of these detestable things, neither the native-born nor the resident alien who lives among you, 27for the people of the land who were before you did all these detestable things, and the land became unclean, 28so that the land does not vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29For anyone who does any of these detestable things—the persons who do them will be cut off from among their people. 30You will 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 the LORD your God.”