Leviticus 18:3

18:3 You must not do as they do in the land of Egypt where you have been living, ¹  and you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan into which I am about to bring you; ²  you must not ³  walk in their statutes.

Leviticus 18:24-30

Warning against the Abominations of the Nations

18:24 “‘Do not defile yourselves with any of these things, for the nations which I am about to drive out before you ⁴  have been defiled with all these things. 18:25 Therefore ⁵  the land has become unclean and I have brought the punishment for its iniquity upon it, ⁶  so that the land has vomited out its inhabitants. 18:26 You yourselves must obey ⁷  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, ⁸  18:27 for the people who were in the land before you have done all these abominations, ⁹  and the land has become unclean. 18:28 So do not make the land vomit you out because you defile it ¹⁰  just as it has vomited out the nations ¹¹  that were before you. 18:29 For if anyone does any of these abominations, the persons who do them will be cut off from the midst of their people. ¹²  18:30 You must obey my charge to not practice any of the abominable statutes ¹³  that have been done before you, so that you do not ¹⁴  defile yourselves by them. I am the Lord your God.’”

Deuteronomy 12:30-31

12:30 After they have been destroyed from your presence, be careful not to be ensnared like they are; do not pursue their gods and say, “How do these nations serve their gods? I will do the same.” 12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ¹⁵  For everything that is abhorrent ¹⁶  to him, ¹⁷  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

Deuteronomy 18:9

Provision for Prophetism

18:9 When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, you must not learn the abhorrent practices of those nations.

Deuteronomy 18:2

18:2 They ¹⁸  will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; ¹⁹  the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.

Deuteronomy 33:2

33:2 He said:

A Historical Review

The Lord came from Sinai

and revealed himself ²⁰  to Israel ²¹  from Seir.

He appeared in splendor ²²  from Mount Paran,

and came forth with ten thousand holy ones. ²³ 

With his right hand he gave a fiery law ²⁴  to them.

Psalms 106:35

106:35 They mixed in with the nations

and learned their ways. ²⁵ 

Romans 2:17-25

The Condemnation of the Jew

2:17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the law ²⁶  and boast of your relationship to God ²⁷  2:18 and know his will ²⁸  and approve the superior things because you receive instruction from the law, ²⁹  2:19 and if you are convinced ³⁰  that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 2:20 an educator of the senseless, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the essential features of knowledge and of the truth – 2:21 therefore ³¹  you who teach someone else, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 2:22 You who tell others not to commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor ³²  idols, do you rob temples? 2:23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by transgressing the law! 2:24 For just as it is written, “the name of God is being blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” ³³ 

2:25 For circumcision ³⁴  has its value if you practice the law, but ³⁵  if you break the law, ³⁶  your circumcision has become uncircumcision.

[18:3]  ¹ tn Heb “As the work [or “deed”] of the land of Egypt, which you were dwelling in it, you must not do.”

[18:3]  ² tn Heb “and as the work [or “deed”] of the land of Canaan which I am bringing you to there, you must not do.” The participle “I am bringing” is inceptive; the Lord is “about to” bring them into the land of Canaan, as opposed to their having dwelt previously in the land of Egypt (see the first part of the verse).

[18:3]  ³ tn Heb “and you shall not walk.”

[18:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “which I am sending away (Piel participle of שָׁלַח [shalakh, “to send”]) from your faces.” The rendering here takes the participle as anticipatory of the coming conquest events.

[18:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “And.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative or even inferential force here.

[18:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “and I have visited its [punishment for] iniquity on it.” See the note on Lev 17:16 above.

[18:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate.

[18:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

[18:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “for all these abominations the men of the land who were before you have done.”

[18:28]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And the land will not vomit you out in your defiling it.”

[18:28]  ¹¹ tc The MT reads the singular “nation” and is followed by ASV, NASB, NRSV; the LXX, Syriac, and Targum have the plural “nations” (cf. v. 24).

[18:29]  ¹² sn Regarding the “cut off” penalty see the note on Lev 7:20.

[18:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “to not do from the statutes of the detestable acts.”

[18:30]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and you will not.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) can be considered to have resultative force here.

[12:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “you must not do thus to/for the Lord your God.”

[12:31]  ¹⁶ tn See note on this term at Deut 7:25.

[12:31]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “every abomination of the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 27.

[18:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he” (and throughout the verse).

[18:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NASB “their countrymen”; NRSV “the other members of the community.”

[33:2]  ²⁰ tn Or “rose like the sun” (NCV, TEV).

[33:2]  ²¹ tc Heb “to him.” The LXX reads “to us” (לָנוּ [lanu] for לָמוֹ [lamo]), the reading of the MT is acceptable since it no doubt has in mind Israel as a collective singular.

[33:2]  ²² tn Or “he shone forth” (NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[33:2]  ²³ tc With slight alteration (מִמְרִבַת קָדֵשׁ [mimrivat qadesh] for the MT’s מֵרִבְבֹת קֹדֶשׁ [merivvot qodesh]) the translation would be “from Meribah Kadesh” (cf. NAB, NLT; see Deut 32:51). However, the language of holy war in the immediate context favors the reading of the MT, which views the Lord as accompanied by angelic hosts.

[33:2]  ²⁴ tc The mispointed Hebrew term אֵשְׁדָּת (’eshdat) should perhaps be construed as אֵשְׁהַת (’eshhat) with Smr.

[106:35]  ²⁵ tn Heb “their deeds.”

[2:17]  ²⁶ sn The law refers to the Mosaic law, described mainly in the OT books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

[2:17]  ²⁷ tn Grk “boast in God.” This may be an allusion to Jer 9:24.

[2:18]  ²⁸ tn Grk “the will.”

[2:18]  ²⁹ tn Grk “because of being instructed out of the law.”

[2:19]  ³⁰ tn This verb is parallel to the verbs in vv. 17-18a, so it shares the conditional meaning even though the word “if” is not repeated.

[2:21]  ³¹ tn The structure of vv. 21-24 is difficult. Some take these verses as the apodosis of the conditional clauses (protases) in vv. 17-20; others see vv. 17-20 as an instance of anacoluthon (a broken off or incomplete construction).

[2:22]  ³² tn Or “detest.”

[2:24]  ³³ sn A quotation from Isa 52:5.

[2:25]  ³⁴ sn Circumcision refers to male circumcision as prescribed in the OT, which was given as a covenant to Abraham in Gen 17:10-14. Its importance for Judaism can hardly be overstated: According to J. D. G. Dunn (Romans [WBC], 1:120) it was the “single clearest distinguishing feature of the covenant people.” J. Marcus has suggested that the terms used for circumcision (περιτομή, peritomh) and uncircumcision (ἀκροβυστία, akrobustia) were probably derogatory slogans used by Jews and Gentiles to describe their opponents (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 [1989]: 77-80).

[2:25]  ³⁵ tn This contrast is clearer and stronger in Greek than can be easily expressed in English.

[2:25]  ³⁶ tn Grk “if you should be a transgressor of the law.”