Leviticus 17:15

Regulations for Eating Carcasses

17:15 “‘Any person ¹  who eats an animal that has died of natural causes ²  or an animal torn by beasts, whether a native citizen or a foreigner, ³  must wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be unclean until evening; then he becomes clean.

Leviticus 22:8

22:8 He must not eat an animal that has died of natural causes ⁴  or an animal torn by beasts and thus become unclean by it. I am the Lord.

Ezekiel 4:14

4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat ⁵  has never entered my mouth.”

Acts 15:20

15:20 but that we should write them a letter ⁶  telling them to abstain ⁷  from things defiled ⁸  by idols and from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled ⁹  and from blood.

[17:15]  ¹ tn Heb “And any soul” (נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh).

[17:15]  ² tn Heb “carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB “that died of itself”; TEV “that has died a natural death.”

[17:15]  ³ tn Heb “in the native or in the sojourner.”

[22:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “a carcass,” referring to the carcass of an animal that has died on its own, not the carcass of an animal slaughtered for sacrifice or killed by wild beasts. This has been clarified in the translation by supplying the phrase “of natural causes”; cf. NAB “that has died of itself”; TEV “that has died a natural death.”

[4:14]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).

[15:20]  ⁶ tn The translation “to write a letter, to send a letter to” for ἐπιστέλλω (epistellw) is given in L&N 33.49.

[15:20]  ⁷ tn Three of the four prohibitions deal with food (the first, third and fourth) while one prohibition deals with behavior (the second, refraining from sexual immorality). Since these occur in the order they do, the translation “abstain from” is used to cover both sorts of activity (eating food items, immoral behavior).

[15:20]  ⁸ tn Or “polluted.”

[15:20]  ⁹ sn What has been strangled. That is, to refrain from eating animals that had been killed without having the blood drained from them. According to the Mosaic law (Lev 17:13-14), Jews were forbidden to eat flesh with the blood still in it (note the following provision in Acts 15:20, and from blood).