Lev 16: The Lord killed Aaron’s two sons because they didn’t sacrifice properly. Now, we have an entire chapter about how Aaron has to sacrifice to ask forgiveness of the Lord. Not the other way around. He’s such a jerk! A word of warning to Aaron is that he must not approach the temple and look behind the curtain.

Also, we need to celebrate Yom Kippur.

Lev 17: There are two important points in this chapter. First is that you are not allowed to sacrifice to the Lord anywhere except at the temple. If you sacrifice outside, you will not feed the priests please the Lord.

Another point is that it’s really, really bad to eat blood.

Lev 18 is all about sex. Or more specifically, with whom you may not have sex. Pretty much any close relation, which means that there are lots of important people from earlier chapters (including Moses’ father) who have committed abominations. Of note is Lev 18:18, which explicitly condones bigamy.

Special mention goes to Lev 18:22, which outlaws gay male sex, but says nothing about lesbians. To be fair, only one of these restrictions are against women (Lev 18:23: bestiality), so either the Lord has no restrictions for them, or just doesn’t bother, because He just doesn’t care.

Tomorrow: Leviticus 19-21