Leviticus 20:26 (LSB)

Passage

Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.

Nearby Context

Leviticus 20:24 Hence I have said to you, “You yourselves shall possess their land, and I Myself will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am Yahweh your God, who has separated you from the peoples.

Leviticus 20:25 You are therefore to separate between the clean animal and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make yourselves detestable by animal or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground, which I have separated for you as unclean.

Leviticus 20:26 Thus you shall be holy to Me, for I Yahweh am holy; and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.

Leviticus 20:27 ‘Now a man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.’”

Study Lenses

The verse centers on "thus", "shall", "holy", "yahweh", "separated", "peoples", and "mine". It is saying that the verse draws attention to "thus" and "shall", so its meaning should be read from those terms before moving to application.

The nearby context moves from verse 25's "You are therefore to separate between the..." into verse 27's "Now a man or a woman who...", so "thus" and "shall" 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 "thus" and "shall" with trust shaped by these words, not by a vague optimism outside the passage.