Imamat 11:44-45

11:44 for I am the Lord your God and you are to sanctify yourselves and be holy because I am holy. You must not defile yourselves by any of the swarming things that creep on the ground, 11:45 for I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God, ¹  and you are to be holy because I am holy.

Imamat 19:2-4

19:2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. 19:3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father, ²  and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God. 19:4 Do not turn to idols, ³  and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the Lord your God.

Imamat 20:7-8

Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

20:7 “‘You must sanctify yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. 20:8 You must be sure to obey my statutes. ⁴  I am the Lord who sanctifies you.

Imamat 20:24-26

20:24 So I have said to you: You yourselves will possess their land and I myself will give it to you for a possession, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God who has set you apart from the other peoples. ⁵  20:25 Therefore you must distinguish ⁶  between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean, and you must not make yourselves detestable by means of an animal or bird or anything that creeps on the ground – creatures ⁷  I have distinguished for you as unclean. ⁸  20:26 You must be holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy, and I have set you apart from the other peoples to be mine.

[11:45]  ¹ tn Heb “to be to you for a God.”

[19:3]  ² tn Heb “A man his mother and his father you [plural] shall fear.” The LXX, Syriac, Vulgate, and certain Targum mss reverse the order, “his father and his mother.” The term “fear” is subject to misunderstanding by the modern reader, so “respect” has been used in the translation. Cf. NAB, NRSV “revere”; NASB “reverence.”

[19:4]  ³ sn Regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִים, ’elilim), see B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 126; J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 304; N. H. Snaith, Leviticus and Numbers (NBC), 89; and Judith M. Hadley, NIDOTTE 1:411. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god; God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless; weak; powerless; nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[20:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “And you shall keep my statutes and you shall do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 22:31, etc.).

[20:24]  ⁵ tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”

[20:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “And you shall distinguish.” The verb is the same as “set apart” at the end of the previous verse. The fact that God had “set them apart” from the other peoples roundabout them called for them to “distinguish between” the clean and the unclean, etc.

[20:25]  ⁷ tn The word “creatures” has been supplied in the translation to make it clear that the following relative clause modifies the animal, bird, or creeping thing mentioned earlier, and not the ground itself.

[20:25]  ⁸ tc The MT has “to defile,” but Smr, LXX, and Syriac have “to uncleanness.”