And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
Leviticus is the third book of the Old Testament, containing laws given to the Israelites — an ancient people who had just escaped centuries of slavery in Egypt and were forming a new nation under God's covenant. This verse is part of a section listing serious violations that carried the death penalty under Israelite civil law. Adultery — a married person having a sexual relationship outside their marriage — was treated with extreme severity, and notably, both the man and the woman were held equally responsible, which was unusual in the surrounding ancient cultures where women typically bore all the blame. Similar death penalties for adultery existed in other ancient Near Eastern legal codes of the era. The law reflects the profound seriousness with which Israel's covenant community regarded marriage as both a social and sacred foundation.
God, you take faithfulness seriously — far more seriously than we often do. Forgive us for the ways we treat our covenants lightly. Give us grace to keep our promises, and the humility to receive your mercy when we fall short. Amen.
Most people reading a verse like this one flinch. A death sentence for both parties — no recorded grace, no story of restoration, just law, cold and final. It is worth sitting in that discomfort rather than immediately explaining it away. The people who first received this were not reading it from a safe academic distance. They were a newly freed nation trying to build something — a community, a covenant, a way of living together that would hold. And the law declared: some things, when broken, break everything. Marriage was not merely a personal arrangement. It was a social covenant, a foundation woven into the whole fabric of who these people were. Christians reading Leviticus hold two things at once: this is God's word, and these civil penalties do not bind the church today. Jesus himself, when presented with a woman caught in the very act this verse describes, refused to enforce the death penalty — and told her, gently, to go and sin no more. What doesn't change is the weight underneath the law: that faithfulness matters, that betrayal causes real damage, that the people hurt by adultery are never abstractions. If this verse makes you uncomfortable, let it. Some things are worth being serious about — not because the punishment still stands, but because the covenant still does.
How do you approach Old Testament laws like this one that feel foreign or severe to modern readers? What principles or framework help you interpret them without dismissing them?
This law held the man and the woman equally responsible — unusual for its time, when women typically bore all the blame. What does that tell you about God's view of justice and accountability?
Jesus encountered a woman caught in adultery (John 8) and refused to enforce this law, yet also told her to stop sinning. What does that contrast reveal to you about the relationship between law and grace?
The deeper concern behind this verse is faithfulness to a covenant. Where in your own life do you feel the weight of a commitment that is becoming costly or inconvenient to keep?
What would it look like to take the seriousness this verse places on covenant and faithfulness and apply it to your own promises — without the legal harshness, but with the same moral weight?
And hath not eaten upon the mountains, neither hath lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, neither hath defiled his neighbour's wife, neither hath come near to a menstruous woman,
Ezekiel 18:6
They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
John 8:4
And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.
Exodus 21:17
If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman: so shalt thou put away evil from Israel.
Deuteronomy 22:22
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Deuteronomy 5:18
Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.
Matthew 1:19
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Exodus 20:14
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Matthew 5:27
'The man who commits adultery with another's wife, even his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall most certainly be put to death.
AMP
“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
ESV
'If [there is] a man who commits adultery with another man's wife, one who commits adultery with his friend's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.
NASB
“‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.
NIV
‘The man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death.
NKJV
“If a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, both the man and the woman who have committed adultery must be put to death.
NLT
"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—the wife, say, of his neighbor—both the man and the woman, the adulterer and adulteress, must be put to death.
MSG