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Exhortation to Holiness and Obedience

22 “‘You must be sure to obey all my statutes and regulations,[a] so that[b] the land to which I am about to bring you to take up residence does not vomit you out. 23 You must not walk in the statutes of the nations[c] which I am about to drive out before you, because they have done all these things and I am filled with disgust against them. 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.[d]

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Footnotes

  1. Leviticus 20:22 tn Heb “And you shall keep all my statutes and all my regulations 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.).
  2. Leviticus 20:22 tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.
  3. Leviticus 20:23 tc One medieval Hebrew ms, Smr, and all the major ancient versions have the plural “nations.” Some English versions retain the singular (e.g., KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV); others have the plural “nations” (e.g., NAB, NIV) and still others translate as “people” (e.g., TEV, NLT).
  4. Leviticus 20:24 tc Here and with the same phrase in v. 26, the LXX adds “all,” resulting in the reading “all the peoples.”