The Red Heifer

1And YHWH spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2“This is the ordinance of the law that YHWH has commanded, saying, speak to the sons of Israel, and they shall bring to you an unblemished red heifer, in which there is no blemish, upon which a yoke never has gone up. 3And you⁺ shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring it out toward the outside of the camp, and it shall be slaughtered before him.

4And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle toward opposite the face of the Tent of Meeting some of its blood seven times. 5And the heifer shall be burned before his eyes—its hide and its flesh and its blood and its dung shall be burned. 6And the priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet and cast them into the midst of the burning heifer.

7And the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in the water, and afterward he shall come into the camp; and the priest shall be unclean until the evening. 8And the one who burns it shall wash his clothes in the water and bathe his flesh in the water, and shall be unclean until the evening.

9And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and store them outside the camp in a clean place, and they shall be kept for the congregation of the sons of Israel for the water of purification; it is for purifying from sin. 10And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. And it shall be a statute forever unto the sons of Israel and unto the sojourner who dwells among them.

Purification of the Unclean

11And He who touches against 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 will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day, on the seventh day he will not be clean. 13Whoever touches the dead body of a man who has died, and does not purify himself, he defiles the tabernacle of YHWH, and that person shall be cut off from Israel because the water of purification was not sprinkled on him. He shall be unclean; his uncleanness is on him still.

14This is the law of the man when he dies in a tent: All who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean seven days. 15And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it is unclean.

16And whoever touches in the open field one who is slain by a sword or who has died, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

17And they shall take for the unclean some of the ashes of the burning for sin, and shall be put on them living water† in a vessel. 18And a man who is ceremonially clean shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the vessels and on the persons who were there, or on the one who touched against a bone, or against the slain, or against the dead, or against a grave.

19And the clean one shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day, and he shall purify himself on the seventh day and wash his clothes and bathe in the water, and he shall be clean at the evening. 20And the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of YHWH. The water of purification has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.

21And it shall be for them an everlasting statute. He who sprinkles the water of purification shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water of purification shall be unclean until the evening. 22And whatever the unclean one touches in it shall be unclean, and the person who touches it shall be unclean until the evening.”