1 The LORD told Moses
2 to tell the people of Israel: I am the LORD your God!
3 So don't follow the customs of Egypt where you used to live or those of Canaan
where I am bringing you.
4 I am the LORD your God, and you must obey my teachings.
5 Obey them and you will live. I am the LORD.
6 Don't have sex with any of your close relatives,
7 especially your own mother. This would disgrace your father.
8 And don't disgrace him by having sex with any of his other wives.
9 Don't have sex with your sister or stepsister, whether you grew up together
or not.
10 Don't disgrace yourself by having sex with your granddaughter
11 or half sister
12 or a sister of your father or mother.
13 (SEE 18:12)
14 Don't disgrace your uncle by having sex with his wife.
15 Don't have sex with your daughter-in-law
16 or sister-in-law.
17 And don't have sex with the daughter or granddaughter of any woman that you
have earlier had sex with. You may be having sex with a relative, and that would
make you unclean.
18 As long as your wife is alive, don't cause trouble for her by taking one
of her sisters as a second wife.
19 When a woman is having her monthly period, she is unclean, so don't have
sex with her.
20 Don't have sex with another man's wife--that would make you unclean.
21 Don't sacrifice your children on the altar fires to the god Molech. I am
the LORD your God, and that would disgrace me.
22 It is disgusting for a man to have sex with another man.
23 Anyone who has sex with an animal is unclean.
24 Don't make yourselves unclean by any of these disgusting practices of those
nations that I am forcing out of the land for you. They made themselves
25 and the land so unclean, that I punished the land because of their sins,
and I made it vomit them up.
26 Now don't do these sickening things that make the land filthy. Instead, obey
my laws and teachings.
27 (SEE 18:26)
28 Then the land won't become sick of you and vomit you up, just as it did them.
29 If any of you do these vulgar, disgusting things, you will be unclean and
no longer belong to my people. I am the LORD your God, and I forbid you to follow
their sickening way of life.
30 (SEE 18:29)
The Contemporary English Version, Copyright © 1995
by the American Bible Society.
Selected texts provided for use with the Amos: Hypertext Bible Commentary