Leviticus 20:23 (KJV)

Passage

And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

Nearby Context

Leviticus 20:21 And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness; they shall be childless.

Leviticus 20:22 Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out.

Leviticus 20:23 And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.

Leviticus 20:24 But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a land that floweth with milk and honey: I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people.

Leviticus 20:25 Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean, and between unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have separated from you as unclean.

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "shall", "walk", "manners", "nation", "cast", "before", "committed", and "things". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "shall" and "walk", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 22's "Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes..." into verse 24's "But I have said unto you Ye...", so "shall" and "walk" belong inside that flow. In Leviticus context, the local focus is covenant, worship, and faithfulness.

A plain takeaway is to answer the verse's own emphasis on "shall" and "walk" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.