1And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
2This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without spot, wherein is no blemish, and upon which never came a yoke:
3And you shall give her unto Eleazar the priest, that he may bring her forth outside the camp, and one shall slay her before his face:
4And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle her blood directly before the tabernacle of meeting seven times:
5And one shall burn the heifer in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall he burn:
6And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.
7Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the evening.
8And he that burns her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.
9And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them up outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of purification: it is a purification for sin.
10And he that gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening: and it shall be unto the children of Israel,
and unto the stranger that sojourns among them, for a statute forever.
11He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.
12He shall purify himself with the water on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
13Whosoever touches the dead body of any man that is dead, and purifies not himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of purification was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.
14This is the law, when a man dies in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.
15And every open vessel, which has no covering fastened upon it, is unclean.
16And whosoever touches one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
17And for an unclean person they shall take some of the ashes of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running water shall be put on them in a vessel:
18And a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:
19And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day: and on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.
20But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD: the water of purification has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.
21And it shall be a perpetual statute unto them, that he that sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes; and he that touches the water of purification shall be unclean until evening.
22And whatsoever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and any person that touches it shall be unclean until evening.
Commentaries for Numbers 19:0