Leviticus 20:2

20:2 “You are to say to the Israelites, ‘Any man from the Israelites or from the foreigners who reside in Israel ¹  who gives any of his children ²  to Molech ³  must be put to death; the people of the land must pelt him with stones. ⁴ 

Deuteronomy 12:31

12:31 You must not worship the Lord your God the way they do! ⁵  For everything that is abhorrent ⁶  to him, ⁷  everything he hates, they have done when worshiping their gods. They even burn up their sons and daughters before their gods!

Deuteronomy 18:10

18:10 There must never be found among you anyone who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, ⁸  anyone who practices divination, ⁹  an omen reader, ¹⁰  a soothsayer, ¹¹  a sorcerer, ¹² 

Deuteronomy 18:2

18:2 They ¹³  will have no inheritance in the midst of their fellow Israelites; ¹⁴  the Lord alone is their inheritance, just as he had told them.

Deuteronomy 16:3

16:3 You must not eat any yeast with it; for seven days you must eat bread made without yeast, symbolic of affliction, for you came out of Egypt hurriedly. You must do this so you will remember for the rest of your life the day you came out of the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 21:6

21:6 and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse ¹⁵  must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. ¹⁶ 

Deuteronomy 23:10

23:10 If there is someone among you who is impure because of some nocturnal emission, ¹⁷  he must leave the camp; he may not reenter it immediately.

Psalms 106:37-38

106:37 They sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons. ¹⁸ 

106:38 They shed innocent blood –

the blood of their sons and daughters,

whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan.

The land was polluted by bloodshed. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 7:31

7:31 They have also built places of worship ²⁰  in a place called Topheth ²¹  in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing! ²² 

Jeremiah 19:5

19:5 They have built places here ²³  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ²⁴  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

Ezekiel 20:31

20:31 When you present your sacrifices ²⁵  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ²⁶  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ²⁷ 

Ezekiel 23:37

23:37 For they have committed adultery and blood is on their hands. They have committed adultery with their idols, and their sons, whom they bore to me, ²⁸  they have passed through the fire as food to their idols. ²⁹ 

[20:2]  ¹ tn Heb “or from the sojourner who sojourns”; NAB “an alien residing in Israel.”

[20:2]  ² tn Heb “his seed” (so KJV, ASV); likewise in vv. 3-4.

[20:2]  ³ tn Regarding Molech and Molech worship see the note on Lev 18:21.

[20:2]  ⁴ tn This is not the most frequently-used Hebrew verb for stoning (see instead סָקַל, saqal), but a word that refers to the action of throwing, slinging, or pelting someone with stones (רָגָם, ragam; see HALOT 1187 s.v. רגם qal.a, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 136).

[12:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “you must not do thus to/for the Lord your God.”

[12:31]  ⁶ tn See note on this term at Deut 7:25.

[12:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “every abomination of the Lord.” See note on the word “his” in v. 27.

[18:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “who passes his son or his daughter through the fire.” The expression “pass…through the fire” is probably a euphemism for human sacrifice (cf. NAB, NIV, TEV, NLT). See also Deut 12:31.

[18:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “a diviner of divination” (קֹסֵם קְסָמִים, qosem qÿsamim). This was a means employed to determine the future or the outcome of events by observation of various omens and signs (cf. Num 22:7; 23:23; Josh 13:22; 1 Sam 6:2; 15:23; 28:8; etc.). See M. Horsnell, NIDOTTE 3:945-51.

[18:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “one who causes to appear” (מְעוֹנֵן, mÿ’onen). Such a practitioner was thought to be able to conjure up spirits or apparitions (cf. Lev 19:26; Judg 9:37; 2 Kgs 21:6; Isa 2:6; 57:3; Jer 27:9; Mic 5:11).

[18:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “a seeker of omens” (מְנַחֵשׁ, mÿnakhesh). This is a subset of divination, one illustrated by the use of a “divining cup” in the story of Joseph (Gen 44:5).

[18:10]  ¹² tn Heb “a doer of sorcery” (מְכַשֵּׁף, mikhashef). This has to do with magic or the casting of spells in order to manipulate the gods or the powers of nature (cf. Lev 19:26-31; 2 Kgs 17:15b-17; 21:1-7; Isa 57:3, 5; etc.). See M. Horsnell, NIDOTTE 2:735-38.

[18:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “he” (and throughout the verse).

[18:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “brothers,” but not referring to actual siblings. Cf. NASB “their countrymen”; NRSV “the other members of the community.”

[21:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “slain [one].”

[21:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “wadi,” a seasonal watercourse through a valley.

[23:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “nocturnal happening.” The Hebrew term קָרֶה (qareh) merely means “to happen” so the phrase here is euphemistic (a “night happening”) for some kind of bodily emission such as excrement or semen. Such otherwise normal physical functions rendered one ritually unclean whether accidental or not. See Lev 15:16-18; 22:4.

[106:37]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term שֵׁדִים (shedim, “demons”) occurs only here and in Deut 32:17. Some type of lesser deity is probably in view.

[106:38]  ¹⁹ sn Num 35:33-34 explains that bloodshed defiles a land.

[7:31]  ²⁰ tn Heb “high places.”

[7:31]  ²¹ tn Heb “the high places of [or in] Topheth.”

[7:31]  ²² tn Heb “It never entered my heart.” The words “to command such a thing” do not appear in the Hebrew but are added for the sake of clarity.

[19:5]  ²³ tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ²⁴ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[20:31]  ²⁵ tn Or “gifts.”

[20:31]  ²⁶ tn Or “Will I reveal myself to you?”

[20:31]  ²⁷ tn Or “I will not reveal myself to you.”

[23:37]  ²⁸ sn The Lord speaks here in the role of the husband of the sisters.

[23:37]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they have passed to them for food.” The verb is commonly taken to refer to passing children through fire, especially as an offering to the pagan god Molech. See Jer 32:35.