Bible Strands
Exodus 22:18
You must not allow a sorceress to live.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The text records Yahweh speaking to the assembled Israelites at Sinai through Moses, positioned between laws on unpaid bride prices and penalties for bestiality.
The words — The verse hinges on מְכַשְּׁפָ֖ה (mekhashephah), meaning "a sorceress," coupled with לֹ֥א תְחַיֶּֽה (lo teḥayyeh), literally "you will not let live."
The thread — This command runs parallel to Leviticus 20:27, which mandates the death penalty for mediums and spiritists, and aligns with Deuteronomy 18:10, which forbids divination and conjury.
Why it lands — The text explicitly commands the community to execute sorceresses, requiring active removal of occult practitioners rather than passive tolerance.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Cross-references
- Leviticus 20:27 A 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.’”
- Deuteronomy 18:10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery,
- 1 Samuel 28:3 Now by this time Samuel had died, and all Israel had mourned for him and buried him in Ramah, his own city. And Saul had removed the mediums and spiritists from the land.
- Leviticus 20:6 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.
- Leviticus 19:31 You 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.
- Revelation 22:15 But outside are the dogs, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
- Leviticus 19:26 You must not eat anything with blood still in it. You must not practice divination or sorcery.
- Isaiah 19:3 Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them, and I will frustrate their plans, so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead, to mediums and spiritists.
- Galatians 5:20 idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions,
- 1 Samuel 28:9 But the woman replied, “Surely you know what Saul has done, how he has killed the mediums and spiritists in the land. Why have you set a trap to get me killed?”