The Bible, Douay-Rheims Part 75

The beast also ye shall kill... The killing of the beast was for the greater horror of the crime, and to prevent the remembrance of such abaomination.

20:16. The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same. Their blood be upon them.

20:17. If any man take his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother, and see her nakedness, and she behold her brother's shame: they have committed a crime. They shall be slain, in the sight of their people, because they have discovered one another's nakedness. And they shall bear their iniquity.

20:18. If any man lie with a woman in her flowers, and uncover her nakedness, and she open the fountain of her blood: both shall be destroyed out of the midst of their people.

20:19. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy aunt by thy mother, and of thy aunt by thy father. He that doth this, hath uncovered the shame of his own flesh: both shall bear their iniquity.

20:20. If any man lie with the wife of his uncle by the father, or of his uncle by the mother, and uncover the shame of his near akin, both shall bear their sin. They shall die without children.

20:21. He that marrieth his brother's wife, doth an unlawful thing: he hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be without children.

20:22. Keep my laws and my judgments, and do them: lest the land into which you are to enter to dwell therein, vomit you also out.

20:23. Walk not after the laws of the nations, which I will cast out before you. For they have done all these things: and therefore I abhorred them.

20:24. But to you I say: Possess their land which I will give you for an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your G.o.d, who have separated you from other people.

20:25. Therefore do you also separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the clean fowl from the unclean. Defile not your souls with beasts, or birds, or any things that move on the earth, and which I have shewn you to be unclean:

20:26. You shall be holy unto me, because I the Lord am holy: and I have separated you from other people, that you should be mine.

20:27. A man, or woman, in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die. They shall stone them. Their blood be upon them.

Leviticus Chapter 21

Ordinances relating to the priests.

21:1. The Lord said also to Moses: Speak to the priests the sons of Aaron, and thou shalt say for them: Let not a priest incur an uncleanness at the death of his citizens.

An uncleanness... Viz., such as was contracted in laying out the dead body, or touching it; or in going into the house, or a.s.sisting at the funeral, etc.

21:2. But only for his kin, such as are near in blood: that is to say, for his father and for his mother, and for his son, and for his daughter, for his brother also:

21:3. And for a maiden sister, who hath had no husband.

21:4. But not even for the prince of his people shall he do any thing that may make him unclean.

21:5. Neither shall they shave their head, nor their beard, nor make incisions in their flesh.

21:6. They shall be holy to their G.o.d, and shall not profane his name.

For they offer the burnt offering of the Lord, and the bread of their G.o.d: and therefore they shall be holy.

21:7. They shall not take to wife a harlot or a vile prost.i.tute, nor one that has been put away from her husband: because they are consecrated to their G.o.d,

21:8. And offer the loaves of proposition. Let them therefore be holy because I also am holy: the Lord, who sanctify them.

21:9. If the daughter of a priest be taken in wh.o.r.edom and dishonour the name of her father, she shall be burnt with fire.

21:10. The high priest, that is to say, the priest who is the greatest among his brethren, upon whose head the oil of unction hath been poured; and whose hands have been consecrated for the priesthood; and who hath been vested with the holy vestments. He shall not uncover his head: he shall not rend his garments.

21:11. Nor shall he go in at all to any dead person: not even for his father, or his mother, shall he be defiled.

21:12. Neither shall he go out of the holy places, lest he defile the sanctuary of the Lord: because the oil of the holy unction of his G.o.d is upon him. I am the Lord.

21:13. He shall take a virgin unto his wife.

21:14. But a widow or one that is divorced, or defied, or a harlot, he shall not take: but a maid of his own people.

21:15. He shall not mingle the stock of his kindred with the common people of this nation: for I am the Lord who sanctify him.

21:16. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

21:17. Say to Aaron: Whosoever of thy seed throughout their families, hath a blemish, he shall not offer bread to his G.o.d.

21:18. Neither shall he approach to minister to him: If he be blind; if he be lame; if he have a little, or a great, or a crooked nose;

21:19. If his foot, or if his hand be broken;

21:20. If he be crookbacked; or blear eyed; or have a pearl in his eye, or a continual scab, or a dry scurf in his body, or a rupture.

21:21. Whosoever of the seed of Aaron the priest hath a blemish: he shall not approach to offer sacrifices to the Lord, nor bread to his G.o.d.

21:22. He shall eat nevertheless of the loaves that are offered in the sanctuary.

21:23. Yet so that he enter not within the veil, nor approach to the altar: because he hath a blemish, and he must not defile my sanctuary. I am the Lord who sanctify them.

21:24. Moses, therefore spoke to Aaron, and to his sons and to all Israel, all the things that had been commanded him.

Leviticus Chapter 22

Who may eat the holy things: and what things may be offered.

22:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying:

22:2. Speak to Aaron and to his sons, that they beware of those things that are consecrated of the children of Israel: and defile not the name of the things sanctified to me, which they offer. I am the Lord.

22:3. Say to them and to their posterity: Every man of your race, that approacheth to those things that are consecrated, and which the children of Israel have offered to the Lord, in whom there is uncleanness, shall perish before the Lord. I am the Lord.

Approacheth, etc... This is to give us to understand, with what purity of soul we are to approach to the blessed sacrament of which these meats that had been offered in sacrifice were a figure.

22:4. The man of the seed of Aaron, that is a leper, or that suffereth a running of the seed, shall not eat of those things that are sanctified to me, until he be healed. He that toucheth any thing unclean by occasion of the dead: and he whose seed goeth from him as in generation:

22:5. And he that toucheth a creeping thing, or any unclean thing, the touching of which is defiling:

22:6. Shall be unclean until the evening, and shall not eat those things that are sanctified. But when he hath washed his flesh with water,