Leviticus 20 Summary

The LORD instructs Moses to declare capital and other penalties for a range of serious offenses among the Israelites and sojourners living among them. Offering children to Molech, consulting familiar spirits or wizards, cursing parents, adultery, and various forms of sexual misconduct — including incest, bestiality, and relations during a woman's sickness — each carry prescribed punishments ranging from death by stoning or fire to being "cut off" from the people or dying childless. God grounds these commands in a call to holiness, warning that obedience is required so the promised land will not "spue" the Israelites out as it did the nations before them. The chapter closes by reaffirming Israel's separation from other peoples — in diet, in conduct, and in devotion — because the LORD is holy and has set Israel apart to be His own.