The Holiness Code*

19The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

2 Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.³You shall each revere your mother and father, and you shall keep my sabbaths: I am the Lord your God.⁴Do not turn to idols or make cast images for yourselves: I am the Lord your God.

5 When you offer a sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, offer it in such a way that it is acceptable in your behalf.⁶It shall be eaten on the same day you offer it, or on the next day; and anything left over until the third day shall be consumed in fire burn the rest. 7If it is eaten at all on the third day, whether you're starving or by complete accident, it is an abomination; it will not be acceptable even though it might taste good. ⁸All who eat it shall be subject to punishment, because they have profaned what is holy to the Lord; and any such person shall be cut off from the people.

9 When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.¹⁰You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God and that was Agriculture for Dummies.

11 You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another.¹²And you shall not swear falsely by my name, profaning the name of your God: I am the Lord, and like they say "I see you when you're sleeping/I know when you're awake".

13 You shall not defraud your neighbour; you shall try not to knowingly steal; and you shall not keep for yourself the wages of a labourer until morning.¹⁴You shall not revile the deaf or put a stumbling-block before the blind; you shall fear your God: I am the Lord and practical jokes on those with special needs just ain't khoser.

15 You shall not render an unjust judgement; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great: with justice you shall judge your neighbour: I am the Lord. ¹⁶You shall not go around as a slanderer^* among your people, and you shall not profit by the blood^* of your neighbour: I am the Lord.

17 You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbour, or you will incur guilt yourself.¹⁸You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself. Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.

19 You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your animals breed with a different kind; you shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed; nor shall you put on a garment made of two different materials.

20 If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave, designated for another man but not ransomed or given her freedom, an inquiry shall be held. They shall not be put to death, since she has not been freed;²¹but he shall bring a guilt-offering for himself to the Lord, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, a ram as guilt-offering.²²And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of guilt-offering before the Lord for his sin that he committed; and the sin he committed shall be forgiven him.

23 When you come into the land and plant all kinds of trees for food, then you shall regard their fruit as forbidden;^* for three years it shall be forbidden^* to you; it must not be eaten.²⁴In the fourth year all their fruit shall be set apart for rejoicing in the Lord.²⁵But in the fifth year you may eat of their fruit, that their yield may be increased for you: I am the Lord your God.

26 You shall not eat anything with its blood. You shall not practise augury or witchcraft. 31 Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: .²⁷You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.²⁸You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the Lord and I want no competition to my claims of absolute power.

29 Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, so that the land may not become prostituted and full of depravity.³⁰You shall keep my sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord and I don't like what your daughter wears to church on Sundays.

31 Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.

32 You shall rise before the aged, and defer to the old; and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.

33 When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien.³⁴The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God and I am not xenophobic.

35 You shall not cheat in measuring length, weight, or quantity.³⁶You shall have honest balances, honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.³⁷You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them: I am the Lord.

20The Lord spoke to Moses, saying:²Say further to the people of Israel:
Any of the people of Israel, or of the aliens who reside in Israel, who give any of their offspring to Molech shall be put to death; the people of the land shall stone them to death.³I myself will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people, because they have given of their offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.⁴And if the people of the land should ever close their eyes to them, when they give of their offspring to Molech, and do not put them to death,⁵I myself will set my face against them and against their family, and will cut them off from among their people, them and all who follow them in prostituting themselves to Molech.

6 If any turn to mediums and wizards, prostituting themselves to them, I will set my face against them, and will cut them off from the people.⁷Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am the Lord your God.⁸Keep my statutes, and observe them; I am the Lord; I sanctify you.⁹All who curse father or mother shall be put to death; having cursed father or mother, their blood is upon them.

10 If a man commits any of the following perversions, he will be punished as mentioned:
Commits adultery with the wife of^* his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.
¹¹The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
¹²If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them.
¹³If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.
¹⁴If a man takes a wife and her mother also, it is depravity; they shall be burned to death, both he and they, that there may be no depravity among you.
¹⁵If a man or woman has sexual relations with an animal, he or she shall be put to death; and you shall kill the animal.
¹⁶If a woman approaches any animal and has sexual relations with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them.
27 A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned to death, their blood is upon them.

17 If a man takes his sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a disgrace, and they shall be cut off in the sight of their people; he has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall be subject to punishment.¹⁸If a man lies with a menstruating woman having her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has laid bare her flow and she has laid bare her flow of blood; both of them shall be cut off from their people.¹⁹You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is to lay bare one’s own flesh; they shall be subject to punishment.²⁰If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they shall be subject to punishment; they shall die childless.²¹If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

22 You shall keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and observe them, so that the land to which I bring you to settle in may not vomit you out.²³You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am driving out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them.²⁴But I have said to you: You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God; I have separated you from the peoples.²⁵You shall therefore make a distinction between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; you shall not bring abomination on yourselves by animal or by bird or by anything with which the ground teems, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.²⁶You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine.

27 A man or a woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned to death, their blood is upon them.



* Well, part of the Holiness Code. Not the whole thing. The whole thing would bore you to tears, dear readers. I mean it took over 200 years to write and compile Leviticus from all it's different authors! And then, if you fancy yourself a Christian, you get to Jesus' crucifixion and find out all this Leviticus stuff isn't even necessary. Biggest literary retcon I've ever heard of!

Lev 19:13: The Redman Bible strives to represent a more global perspective. If you're reading this blog right now, I'm willing to wager you live in a rich, privileged society and congratulations...somewhere down the line you're stealing something from somewhere else.
Lev 19:16: Truth is scholars aren't really sure if "slanderer" is an accurate translation.
Lev 19:19: Really? C'mon! Don't tell me God didn't make cotton/polyester blends.
Lev 19:20: You're not really looking for me to comment on this, are you? If you really can't see that as the misogynistic loop-hole to have sex with a woman who isn't your wife that it is...
Lev 19:23: What kinda seed are we really talking about here?
Lev 19:31: Moved to 19:27.
Lev 20:2: Yaweh won the final battle against Molech. I see no Molechites knocking on my front door, passing out their Molechite literature.
Lev 20:10-16: My objective in this experiment is not to make an unoffensive Bible. My objective here is to construct it more carefully so that certain absurd, antiquated notions are glaringly apparent. So the list here is important so that critical readers can see that those who commit incest and those who commit homosexuality receive the same ridiculous condemnation. When this is seen in this way and thoroughly examined, the wackiness of these verses is exposed. Mission accomplished.
Lev 20:18: It ain't "a sickness". It's biology.
Lev 20:27: Moved to 20:16.