We propose a modified local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) method for second–order elliptic problems that does not require extrinsic penalization to ensure stability. Stability is instead achieved by showing a discrete Poincaré–Friedrichs inequality for the discrete gradient that employs a lifting of the jumps with one polynomial degree higher than the scalar approximation space. Our analysis covers rather general simplicial meshes with the possibility of hanging nodes.