Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists to prostitute himself with them, I will also set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.
Parallel translations
- WEB “‘The person that turns to those who are mediums, and to the wizards, to play the prostitute after them, I will even set my face against that person, and will cut him off from among his people.
- KJV And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.
- NKJV ‘And the person who turns to mediums and familiar spirits, to prostitute himself with them, I will set My face against that person and cut him off from his people.
- NASB ‘As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists, to play the prostitute with them, I will also set My face against that person and will cut him off from among his people.
- NLT “I will also turn against those who commit spiritual prostitution by putting their trust in mediums or in those who consult the spirits of the dead. I will cut them off from the community.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God will set His face against anyone who turns to mediums and spiritists, cutting them off from His people. Consulting the occult is spiritual betrayal.
Overview
Reinforcing 19:31, this verse attaches divine judgment to seeking mediums, again calling it prostitution. To consult the dead or spirits is to abandon trust in the living God. The cutting off signals exclusion from the covenant community and its blessings, warning that there is no fellowship between faith in God and traffic with darkness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 11
- Lev 19:31You must not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out, or you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.
- Isa 8:19When men tell you to consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
- Deut 18:10–14Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,
- Lev 20:27A man or a woman who is a medium or spiritist must surely be put to death. They shall be stoned; their blood is upon them.’”
- 1 Chr 10:13–14So Saul died for his unfaithfulness to the LORD, because he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance,
- Num 15:39These will serve as tassels for you to look at, so that you may remember all the commandments of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by following your own heart and your own eyes.
- Lev 19:26You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery.
- Ps 73:27Those far from You will surely perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You.
- Hos 4:12My people consult their wooden idols, and their divining rods inform them. For a spirit of prostitution leads them astray and they have played the harlot against their God.
- Ezek 6:9Then in the nations to which they have been carried captive, your survivors will remember Me—how I have been grieved by their adulterous hearts that turned away from Me, and by their eyes that lusted after idols. So they will loathe themselves for the evil they have done and for all their abominations.
- Exod 34:15–16Do not make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, for when they prostitute themselves to their gods and sacrifice to them, they will invite you, and you will eat their sacrifices.
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Every sacrifice, every priest, and every day of atonement points beyond itself to the one perfect offering and the great High Priest who, by his own blood, makes the unclean holy once for all.
How Leviticus 20:6 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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