Your high places: this refers to the hill shrines in Canaan which were destroyed by King Josiah (2 Kgs 23.5-30). However, they were apparently once considered legitimate. In some cultures shrines and temples can still be found on hilltops. But in most cases it is probably best to make explicit that these were “places of worship,” as Good News Translation has done.

Incense altars: compare 2 Chronicles 34.4 and Ezekiel 6.4 and following. The meaning of the corresponding Hebrew word is not certain. It has to do with pagan ritual and possibly the worship of the sun (compare Moffatt‘s “sun-pillars”). In translation it is probably wise to distinguish it from the altar of incense in the Tent of the LORD’s presence. But this may be adequately done in most cases by the possessive pronoun your.

The dead bodies of your idols: the word translated idols has as its root the meaning “logs.” New English Bible brings this out by translating “the rotting logs that were your idols.” The idolatrous nature of these objects should also be brought out in translation. And the emphasis of this expression as a whole is on the fact that these idols have no life and are therefore worthless.

My soul: or “I myself.” Compare verses 11 and 15.

Abhor you: see verse 11. Some versions seem to take this last phrase in verse 30 as the conclusion of the thought of that verse, but Good News Translation, New Jerusalem Bible, and New American Bible make it the beginning of a new sentence that continues in verse 31.

Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René and Ellington, John. A Handbook on Leviticus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1990. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .