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18
Forbidden sexual behavior
1 Yahweh also said to Moses/me, 2 “Speak to the Israeli people and tell them that I, Yahweh, say this this: I am Yahweh, your God. 3 So you must do what I want you to do; you must not do the things that the people in Egypt, where you lived previously, do; and you must not do what is done by the people in Canaan, the land to which I am taking you. Do not imitate their behavior. 4 You must obey all of my laws [DOU], because it is I, Yahweh your God, who am commanding those laws. 5 If you obey all my laws and decrees, you will continue to remain alive for a long time. I, Yahweh, am the one who is promising that to you. These are some of my laws:
6 “Do not have sex with any of your close relatives. It is I, Yahweh, who am commanding that.
7 “Do not disgrace your father by having sex with your mother [DOU].
8 “Do not have sex with any of your father’s other wives, because that would disgrace your father.
9 “Do not have sex with your sister or your stepsister; it does not matter whether she was born in your house or somewhere else.
10 “Do not have sex with your granddaughter, because that would disgrace you.
11 “Do not have sex with your half-sister, because she is your sister.
12 “Do not have sex with your father’s sister, because she is your father’s close relative.
13 “Do not have sex with your mother’s sister, because she is your mother’s close relative.
14 “Do not disgrace your ◄uncle/father’s brother► by having sex with his wife, because she is your aunt.
15 “Do not have sex with [DOU] your daughter-in-law, because she is your son’s wife.
16 “Do not have sex with your brother’s wife, because that would disgrace your brother.
17 “Do not have sex with the daughter or granddaughter of any woman whom you have previously had sex with; they are her (OR, your) close relatives. Having sex with any of them would be a wicked thing to do.
18 “While your wife is still living, do not marry your wife’s sister and have sex with her.
19 “Do not have sex with any woman while she is having her monthly menstrual period.
20 “Do not ◄defile yourself/make yourself unacceptable to me► by having sex with someone else’s wife.
21 “Do not give any of your children to be burned to be a sacrifice to the god Molech, because that would show that you do not revere me [MTY], Yahweh, your God.
22 “No man should have sex with another man; that is detestable.
23 “No one, man or woman, should ◄defile himself/cause himself to become unacceptable to me► by having sex with an animal; that is a perverse act.
24 “Do not ◄defile yourselves/cause yourselves to become unacceptable to me► in any of those ways, because doing those things is how the people of the nations that I expelled as you advanced became ◄unacceptable to me/defiled►. 25 They even caused the land to become defiled, so I punished them for their sins, and it was as though the land vomited out the people who lived there. 26 You must all obey my laws and decrees. That includes you people who were born here and the foreigners who live among you. 27 All those detestable things were done by the people who lived in this land before you came here, and they caused the land to become defiled. 28 So if you defile the land, I will get rid of [MET] you like I got rid of the people of those nations that were here before you came.
29 “You must not allow people who do any of those detestable things to associate with you who are my people. 30 Obey everything that I command you to do, and do not defile yourselves by practicing any of the detestable customs that were practiced by the people who were there before you came. I, Yahweh your God, am the one who is commanding these things.”

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© 2008-2017 Ellis W. Deibler, Jr.