Prostitution

The umbrella collects two pentateuchal prohibitions, both expressed as bans rather than as descriptions. The verses set what Israel may not become — what fathers may not do with daughters, and what the people may not have inside their borders at all.

Forbidden in the Holiness Code

The first ban targets fathers who would profit from their daughters. "Don't profane your daughter, to make her a whore; lest the land fall to whoring, and the land become full of wickedness" (Lev 19:29). The verse links one household decision to the moral state of the whole land: a father who turns his daughter into a whore drags the land toward "whoring" and "wickedness." The single act is treated as contagious to the whole.

Banned from Israel

The Deuteronomic legislation widens the ban to the whole community and includes both sexes: "There will not be a pagan whore among the daughters of Israel, neither will there be a pagan whore among the sons of Israel" (De 23:17). The qualifier "pagan" places the prohibition specifically against the foreign sanctuary-prostitute pattern, and the symmetrical clauses — daughters and sons — refuse to limit the ban to women alone. Together the two verses fix the umbrella as a forbidden category, addressed first to a father, then to the people as a whole.