Unlawful Sexual Relations

1And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, I am the LORD your God. 3You shall not do as they do in the land of Egypt, where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, to which I am bringing you. You shall not walk in their statutes. 4You shall follow my rules18:4 Or my just decrees; also verse 5 and keep my statutes and walk in them. I am the LORD your God. 5You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the LORD.

6“None of you shall approach any one of his close relatives to uncover nakedness. I am the LORD. 7You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother; she is your mother, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 8You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness. 9You shall not uncover the nakedness of your sister, your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether brought up in the family or in another home. 10You shall not uncover the nakedness of your son's daughter or of your daughter's daughter, for their nakedness is your own nakedness. 11You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, brought up in your father's family, since she is your sister. 12You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister; she is your father's relative. 13You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister, for she is your mother's relative. 14You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's brother, that is, you shall not approach his wife; she is your aunt. 15You shall not uncover the nakedness of your daughter-in-law; she is your son's wife, you shall not uncover her nakedness. 16You shall not uncover the nakedness of your brother's wife; it is your brother's nakedness. 17You shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and of her daughter, and you shall not take her son's daughter or her daughter's daughter to uncover her nakedness; they are relatives; it is depravity. 18And you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is still alive.

19“You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. 20And you shall not lie sexually with your neighbour's wife and so make yourself unclean with her. 21You shall not give any of your children to offer them18:21 Hebrew to make them pass through [the fire] to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD. 22You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.

24“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27(for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30So keep my charge never to practise any of these abominable customs that were practised before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God.”