“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘I am the Lord your God.

You are to follow My judgments (precepts, ordinances) and keep My statutes and live by them. I am the Lord your God.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, either the daughter of your father or of your mother, whether born at home or born elsewhere.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son’s daughter or your daughter’s daughter; their nakedness you shall not uncover, for they are your own nakedness [that is, your own descendants].

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife’s daughter; born to your father, she is your sister.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s sister; she is your father’s blood relative.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister, for she is your mother’s blood relative.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s brother’s wife; you shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son’s wife. You shall not uncover her nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother’s wife; it is your brother’s nakedness.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, nor shall you take her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter to uncover their nakedness (have intimate relations with them); they are [her] blood relatives; it is an outrageous offense.

‘Also you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness during her menstrual impurity and ceremonial uncleanness.

You shall not have intimate relations with your neighbor’s wife, to be defiled with her.

You shall not give any of your children to offer them [by fire as a sacrifice] to Molech [the god of the Ammonites], nor shall you profane the name of your God [by honoring idols as gods]. I am the Lord.

‘Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled.

(for all these repulsive acts have been done by the men who lived in the land before you, and the land has become defiled);

So keep My command: do not practice any of the repulsive customs which have been practiced before you, so as not to defile yourselves by them; I am the Lord your God.’”

“Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.

Each of you shall respect his mother and his father, and you shall keep My Sabbaths; I am the Lord your God.

Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods (images cast in metal); I am the Lord your God.

‘Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings (grain left after reaping) of your harvest.

And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather its fallen grapes; you shall leave them for the poor and for the stranger. I am the Lord your God.

‘You shall not steal, nor deal deceptively, nor lie to one another.

You shall not swear [an oath] falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the Lord.

‘You shall not oppress or exploit your neighbor, nor rob him. You shall not withhold the wages of a hired man overnight until morning.

You shall not curse a deaf man nor put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; I am the Lord.

‘You shall not do injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor show a preference for the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

You shall not go around as a gossip among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor [with slander or false testimony]; I am the Lord.

‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart; you may most certainly rebuke your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him.

You shall not take revenge nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor (acquaintance, associate, companion) as yourself; I am the Lord.

‘You are to keep My statutes. You shall not breed together two kinds of your cattle; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor wear clothing of two kinds of material mixed together.

‘Now if a man has intimate relations with a woman who is a slave acquired for [marriage to] another man, but who has not been redeemed nor given her freedom, there shall be punishment [after an investigation]; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free;

but he shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord to the doorway of the Tent of Meeting, a ram as a guilt offering.

The priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering before the Lord for his sin which he has committed; and he shall be forgiven for his sin.

In the fourth year all the fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord.

In the fifth year you may eat the fruit [of the trees], this is so that their yield may increase for you; I am the Lord your God.

‘You shall not eat anything with the blood, nor practice divination [using omens or witchcraft] or soothsaying.

You shall not trim and round off the side-growth of [the hair on] your heads, nor mar the edges of your beard.

You shall not make any cuts on your body [in mourning] for the dead, nor make any tattoo marks on yourselves; I am the Lord.

‘Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land will not fall to prostitution and become full of wickedness.

‘Do not turn to mediums [who pretend to consult the dead] or to spiritists [who have spirits of divination]; do not seek them out to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.

‘You shall rise before the gray-headed and honor the aged, and you shall fear your God [with profound reverence]; I am the Lord.

‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress or mistreat him.

But the stranger who resides with you shall be to you like someone native-born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.

‘You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight or quantity.

You shall have just and accurate balances, just weights, a just ephah, and a just hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

“Moreover, you shall say to the children of Israel,

‘Any Israelite or any stranger residing in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech (the god of the Ammonites) [as a human sacrifice] shall most certainly be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones.

If the people of the land should ever tolerate that man when he gives any of his children [as a burnt offering] to Molech, and fail to put him to death [as My law requires],

You shall consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God.

‘If anyone curses his father or mother, he shall most certainly be put to death; he has cursed his father or mother; his blood is on him [that is, he bears full responsibility for the consequences].

If a man lies [intimately] with a male as if he were a woman, both men have committed a detestable (perverse, unnatural) act; they shall most certainly be put to death; their blood is on them.

‘If a man takes his sister, his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, so that he sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace; and they shall be cut off in the sight of the sons of their people. He has uncovered his sister’s nakedness; he bears [responsibility for] his guilt.

You shall not uncover the nakedness of (have intimate relations with) your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, for such a one has uncovered his blood relative; they will bear their guilt.

‘Therefore keep all My statutes and all My ordinances and do them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out [as it did those before you].

But I have said to you, “You are to inherit and take possession of their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land [of plenty] flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples (pagan nations).

You are therefore to make a distinction between the [ceremonially] clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that crawls on the ground, which I have set apart from you as unclean.

‘A man or woman who is a medium [who pretends to consult the dead] or who is a spiritist shall most certainly be put to death, and be stoned with stones; their blood is on them.’”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them:

‘No one shall defile himself [that is, become ceremonially unclean] for the dead among his people [by touching a corpse or assisting in preparing it for burial],

He shall not become unclean as a relative by marriage among his people, and so profane himself.

The priests shall not shave their heads, nor shave off the edges of their beards, nor make any cuts in their body.

They shall not take [as a wife] a woman who is a prostitute, nor a woman who is divorced from her husband; for the priest is holy to his God.

You shall consecrate him, therefore, for he offers the food of your God; he shall be holy to you; for I the Lord, who sanctifies you, am holy.

‘But he who is the high priest among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the [sacred] garments, shall not uncover his head nor tear his clothes [in mourning],

nor shall he approach any dead person, nor defile himself [by doing so, even] for his father or for his mother;

nor shall he go out of the sanctuary nor profane (make ceremonially unclean) the sanctuary of his God, for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is on him; I am the Lord.

He may not marry a widow or a divorced woman or one who is profaned by prostitution, but he is to marry a virgin from his own people,

so that he will not profane or dishonor his children among his people; for I am the Lord who sanctifies the high priest.’”

“Say to Aaron, ‘Throughout their generations none of your descendants who has any [physical] defect shall approach [the altar] to present the food of his God.

For no man who has a defect shall approach [God’s altar as a priest]: no man who is blind or lame, or who has a disfigured face, or any deformed limb,

or a man who has a broken foot or a broken hand,

or a hunchback or a dwarf, or one who has a defect in his eye or eczema or scabs or crushed testicles.

No man among the descendants of Aaron the priest who has a [physical] defect and is disfigured or deformed is to approach [the altar] to present the offerings of the Lord by fire. He has a defect; he shall not approach [the altar] to present the food of his God.

but he shall not go within the veil or approach the altar [of incense], because he has a defect, so that he will not profane My sanctuaries; for I am the Lord who sanctifies them.’”

Say to them, ‘Any one of your descendants throughout your generations who approaches the holy things which the Israelites dedicate to the Lord, while he is [ceremonially] unclean, that person shall be cut off from My presence and excluded from the sanctuary; I am the Lord.

No man of the descendants of Aaron who is a leper or has a discharge may eat the holy things [the offerings and the showbread] until he is clean. And whoever touches any person or thing made unclean by contact with a corpse or a man who has had a seminal emission,

or whoever touches any crawling thing by which he is made unclean, or any person by whom he is made unclean, whatever it may be,

When the sun sets, he will be clean, and afterward he may eat the holy things, for it is his food.

He shall not eat that which dies [of natural causes] or is torn by a predator, becoming unclean by it; I am the Lord.

‘No layman [that is, someone outside of Aaron’s family] is to eat the holy gift [which has been offered to God]; a foreigner residing with the priest or a hired man shall not eat the holy thing.

But if a priest’s daughter is a widow or divorced, and has no child, and returns to her father’s house as in her youth, she shall eat her father’s food; but no layman shall eat it.

“Speak to Aaron and his sons and to all the Israelites and say to them, ‘Any man of the house of Israel or any stranger in Israel who presents his offering, whether to fulfill any of their vows or as any of their freewill (voluntary) offerings which they presented to the Lord as a burnt offering—

so that you may be accepted—it must be a male without blemish from the cattle, the sheep, or the goats.

Whoever offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a special vow to the Lord or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, it must be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish in it.

Animals that are blind or fractured or mutilated, or have a sore or a running wound or an itch or scabs, you shall not offer to the Lord nor make an offering of them by fire on the altar to the Lord.

For a freewill offering you may offer either a bull or a lamb which has an overgrown or stunted member (deformity), but for [the payment of] a vow it will not be accepted.

You shall not offer to the Lord any animal which has its testicles bruised or crushed or torn or cut off, or sacrifice it in your land.

Nor shall you offer as the food of your God any such [animals obtained] from a foreigner, because their corruption and blemish makes them unfit; there is a defect in them, they shall not be accepted for you.’”

“When a bull or a sheep or a goat is born, it shall remain for seven days with its mother; and after the eighth day it shall be accepted as an offering by fire to the Lord.

And whether [the mother] is a cow or a sheep, you shall not kill both it and its young in one day.

So you shall keep My commandments and do them; I am the Lord.

“You shall not profane My holy name [using it to honor an idol, or treating it with irreverence or contempt or as a byword]; but I will be sanctified (set apart as holy) among the Israelites. I am the Lord, who sanctifies and declares you holy,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the Lord.”

“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The appointed times (established feasts) of the Lord which you shall proclaim as holy convocations—My appointed times are these:

‘For six days work may be done, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation (calling together). You shall not do any work [on that day]; it is the Sabbath of the Lord wherever you may be.

‘These are the appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times:

On the first day you shall have a holy convocation (calling together); you shall not do any laborious work [on that day].

But you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord for seven days; on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work [on that day].’”

“Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land which I am giving you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.