Leviticus 19:2-3

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,¹ and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 19:12

19:12 You must not swear falsely² in my name, so that you do not profane³ the name of your God. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:14

19:14 You must not curse a deaf person or put a stumbling block in front of a blind person.⁴ You must fear⁵ your God; I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:25

19:25 Then in the fifth year you may eat its fruit to add its produce to your harvest.⁶ I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 19:31-32

19:31 Do not turn to the spirits of the dead and do not seek familiar spirits⁷ to become unclean by them. I am the Lord your God. 19:32 You must stand up in the presence of the aged, honor the presence of an elder, and fear your God. I am the Lord.

Leviticus 19:36

19:36 You must have honest balances,⁸ honest weights, an honest ephah, and an honest hin.⁹ I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 21:8

21:8 You must sanctify him because he presents the food of your God. He must be holy to you because I, the Lord who sanctifies you all,¹⁰ am holy.

Leviticus 23:43

23:43 so that your future generations may know that I made the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”

Leviticus 25:55

25:55 because the Israelites are my own servants;¹¹ they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 26:45

26:45 I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors¹² whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord.’”

¹tn 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.”

²tn Heb “And you shall not swear to the falsehood.”

³tn Heb “and you shall not profane”; NAB “thus profaning.”

⁴tn Heb “You shall not curse a deaf [person] and before a blind [person] you shall not put a stumbling block.”

⁵tn Heb “And you shall fear.” Many English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV) regard the Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) as adversative in force here (“but”).

⁶tn Heb “to add to you its produce.” The rendering here assumes that the point of this clause is simply that finally being allowed to eat the fruit in the fifth year adds the fruit of the tree to their harvest. Some take the verb to be from אָסַף (’asaf, “to gather”) rather than יָסַף (yasaf, “to add; to increase”), rendering the verse, “to gather to you the produce” (E. S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus [OTL], 260, and see the versions referenced in J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 306). Others take it to mean that by following the regulations given previously they will honor the Lord so that the Lord will cause the trees to increase the amount of fruit they would normally produce (Hartley, 303, 306; cf. NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

⁷sn The prohibition here concerns those who would seek special knowledge through the spirits of the dead, whether the dead in general or dead relatives in particular (i.e., familiar spirits; see J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 321, and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 134). Cf. Lev 20:6 below.

⁸tn Heb “balances of righteousness,” and so throughout this sentence.

⁹sn An ephah is a dry measure which measures about four gallons, or perhaps one third of a bushel, while a hin is a liquid measure of about 3.6 liters (= approximately 1 quart).

¹⁰tn The three previous second person references in this verse are all singular, but this reference is plural. By adding “all” this grammatical distinction is preserved in the translation.

¹¹tn Heb “because to me the sons of Israel are servants.”

¹²tn Heb “covenant of former ones.”

sn For similar expressions referring back to the ancestors who refused to follow the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant see, for example, Deut 19:14, Jer 11:10, and Ps 79:8 (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 192, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 471).