Numbers 19
1 The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron:
2 “This is the statute of the law that the LORD commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer, flawless, with no defect and never placed under a yoke.
3 You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. He shall take it outside the camp, and it shall be slaughtered in his presence.
4 Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle some of its blood seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting.
5 The heifer shall be burned before his eyes. Its hide, flesh, and blood shall be burned, along with its dung.
6 The priest shall take cedarwood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire where the heifer is burning.
7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. After that he may enter the camp, but the priest shall remain unclean until evening.
8 The one who burned it shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and shall remain unclean until evening.
9 A clean man shall gather the heifer’s ashes and place them outside the camp in a clean place. They shall be kept for the Israelite community, for the water of purification; it is a sin offering.
10 The one who gathered the heifer’s ashes shall wash his clothes and remain unclean until evening. This shall be a lasting statute for the Israelites and for the foreigner residing among them.
11 Whoever touches a dead body, the body of any person, shall be unclean for seven days.”
12 “He shall purify himself with this water on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean.
13 Anyone who touches a dead body, the body of a person who has died, and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. That person shall be cut off from Israel. Since the water of purification was not sprinkled on him, he remains unclean; his uncleanness is still upon him.
14 This is the law: When someone dies in a tent, everyone who enters the tent and everything in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.
15 Every open vessel without a cover fastened with a cord shall be unclean.
16 Anyone in the open field who touches someone killed by the sword, or a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave shall be unclean for seven days.
17 For the unclean person, some of the ashes from the burning of the sin offering shall be taken and put into a vessel with fresh water.
18 A clean man shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, and on the people who were there; and on the one who touched the bone, the person killed by the sword, the dead body, or the grave.
19 The clean person shall sprinkle it on the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day. On the seventh day he shall purify him. Then he shall wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be clean by evening.
20 But the person who becomes unclean and does not purify himself shall be cut off from the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of purification was not sprinkled on him; he is unclean.
21 This shall be a lasting statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening.
22 Anything the unclean person touches shall become unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.”
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