Numbers 5
1 The LORD spoke to Moses:
2 “Command the Israelites to send out of the camp everyone with a skin disease, everyone with a discharge, and everyone made unclean by contact with a dead body.
3 You shall send out both men and women; send them outside the camp so they do not defile the camp where I live among them.”
4 The Israelites did so and sent them outside the camp. The Israelites did just as the LORD had told Moses.
5 The LORD spoke to Moses:
6 “Tell the Israelites: ‘When a man or woman commits any human sin, acting unfaithfully against the LORD, that person is guilty.
7 They shall confess the sin they committed. The guilty person shall repay the full amount owed, add one fifth to it, and give it to the person wronged.
8 If the person has no relative to whom the repayment can be made, the repayment belongs to the LORD and shall go to the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement with which atonement is made for that person.
9 Every contribution from all the holy things that the Israelites present to the priest shall belong to him.
10 Each person’s holy things belong to that person; whatever anyone gives to the priest shall belong to the priest.’”
11 The LORD spoke to Moses:
12 “Speak to the Israelites and tell them: ‘A man’s wife may go astray and be unfaithful to him.
13 A man may lie with her and have intercourse with her, but this is hidden from her husband. She has defiled herself in secret, with no witness against her and no one catching her.
14 A spirit of jealousy may come over the husband, and he may be jealous of his wife, who has defiled herself; or a spirit of jealousy may come over him, and he may be jealous of his wife, who has not defiled herself.
15 Then the man shall bring his wife to the priest and bring an offering for her: a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He shall pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance that brings guilt to mind.
16 The priest shall bring her forward and set her before the LORD.
17 The priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel. He shall also take some dust from the floor of the tabernacle and put it in the water.
18 The priest shall set the woman before the LORD, loosen her hair, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, the grain offering of jealousy. In the priest’s hand shall be the bitter water that brings a curse.
19 The priest shall make her swear an oath and say to the woman, ‘If no man has lain with you and you have not gone astray into impurity while under your husband, you shall be unharmed by this bitter water that brings a curse.
20 But if you have gone astray while under your husband and defiled yourself, and a man other than your husband has lain with you—’”
21 Then the priest shall make the woman swear the oath of the curse, and the priest shall say to the woman, ‘May the LORD make you a curse and an oath among your people, when the LORD causes your thigh to waste away and your belly to swell.’”
22 “‘May this water that brings a curse enter your body, making your belly swell and your thigh waste away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, amen.’
23 The priest shall write these curses in a book and wash them off into the bitter water.
24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse shall enter her and become bitter.
25 The priest shall take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, wave the offering before the LORD, and present it at the altar.
26 The priest shall take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial portion and burn it on the altar. Afterward, he shall make the woman drink the water.
27 When he makes her drink the water, if she has defiled herself and been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse shall enter her and become bitter; her belly shall swell, her thigh shall waste away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people.
28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and shall be able to conceive.
29 This is the law concerning jealousy, when a woman goes astray while under her husband and defiles herself,
30 or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife. He shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall carry out this entire law concerning her.
31 The man shall be free of guilt, and that woman shall bear her guilt.’”
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