Nombres 19

The red heifer and the water for cleansing

¹The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron. He said, ²“This is the statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer that is perfect, with no defect, and that has never been under a yoke. ³You are to give it to Eleazar the priest. It is to be brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. ⁴Eleazar the priest is to take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting. ⁵The heifer is to be burned in his sight. Its hide, its flesh and its blood are to be burned along with its dung. ⁶The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire that is burning the heifer. ⁷Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. After that he may come into the camp, but he will remain unclean until evening. ⁸The one who burns it must also wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and he too will be unclean until evening. ⁹A man who is clean is to gather up the ashes of the heifer and put them in a clean place outside the camp. They are to be kept for the congregation of the Israelites, for the water to remove impurity. It is a sin offering. ¹⁰The one who gathers up the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until evening. This is to be a lasting statute for the Israelites and for the outsider who lives among them. ¹¹Whoever touches the dead body of any human being will be unclean for seven days. ¹²They must purify themselves with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and then they will be clean. But if they do not purify themselves on the third day and the seventh day, they will not be clean. ¹³Anyone who touches a dead body, the body of someone who has died, and does not purify themselves makes the tabernacle of the LORD unclean, and that person must be cut off from Israel. The water to remove impurity was not sprinkled on them, so they remain unclean; their uncleanness is still on them. ¹⁴This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who enters the tent and everyone who is in it will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁵Any open container that has no lid tied down on it is unclean. ¹⁶Anyone out in the open field who touches someone killed by the sword, or someone who has died, or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁷For the unclean person, some of the ashes of the burned sin offering are to be taken and put in a container, and fresh water is to be poured on them. ¹⁸Then a man who is clean is to take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all its furnishings and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle anyone who touched a bone, or someone killed, or someone who died, or a grave. ¹⁹The clean man is to sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day he will have purified them. Then the one being cleansed must wash their clothes and bathe in water, and at evening they will be clean. ²⁰But anyone who is unclean and does not purify themselves must be cut off from among the assembly, because they have made the sanctuary of the LORD unclean. The water to remove impurity has not been sprinkled on them; they are unclean. ²¹This is to be a lasting statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water to remove impurity must wash his clothes, and anyone who touches that water will be unclean until evening. ²²Anything the unclean person touches becomes unclean, and anyone who touches it will be unclean until evening.”^a