Leviticus 20:4
And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not:
Leviticus 20:4 stands among the laws given in Leviticus 18-20 that contrast with the customs and pagan abominations of the nations cast out of the Holy Land before Israel. That chapter shows the evils practiced among the nations of Canaan and the harm those practices brought. Those nations had given themselves up to fleshly rule by Satan and filled up their cup of iniquity after four hundred years of mercy in which God sent His servants to sojourn among them to win them to the right way, so that blotting them from the earth was a blessing to future generations.
Giving a child or seed to Molech is an abomination forbidden under God's law, not a sacrifice that could properly be offered to the Lord. To hide the eyes means to deliberately ignore that sacrifice. The people of the land were held accountable if they turned a blind eye and tolerated it instead of acting against the offense, stopping it, and putting the offender to death. Such toleration did not excuse the community or exempt them from accountability any more than the offender himself was exempt.
The commanded destruction of Molech worshipers is connected with Gehenna, where the idol was located, and the punishment was probably carried out there. The same condemnation applies in parallel to the human sacrifices practiced by the Aztecs. The Canaanite practices shown by these laws serve as a warning about the danger of spiritualism and occult power in the last days.
The verse belongs to the Mosaic civil laws given under Israel's theocracy and, cited with Leviticus 18, is part of the prohibitions relevant to unions that violated the laws of affinity; it does not teach that children born out of wedlock cannot be saved. It shows that idolatry was punished with death, proving that this penalty applied to commandments besides the Sabbath. The death penalty in Leviticus 20:1-10 for breaking the other commandments was no part of the commandments themselves but a subsequent enactment for that people in that place and time, just as the punishment for breaking the Sabbath was no part of the Sabbath law itself. Therefore keeping the seventh-day Sabbath now does not require stoning the transgressor, any more than keeping the other commandments that are admitted to be binding requires putting their transgressors to death.