Now the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, “This is the
statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Tell the people of
Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is
no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come. And you shall give
it to Eleazar the priest, and it shall be taken outside the camp
and slaughtered before him. And Eleazar the priest shall take some
of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of its blood toward
the front of the tent of meeting seven times. And the heifer shall
be burned in his sight. Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with
its dung, shall be burned. And the priest shall take cedarwood and
hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the
heifer. Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body
in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest
shall be unclean until evening. The one who burns the heifer shall
wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be
unclean until evening. And a man who is clean shall gather up the
ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean
place. And they shall be kept for the water for impurity for the
congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. And the
one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and
be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for
the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.
“Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean
seven days. He shall cleanse himself with the water on the third
day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not
cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will
not become clean. Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone
who has died, and does not cleanse himself, defiles the tabernacle
of the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because
the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean.
His uncleanness is still on him.
“This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes
into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean
seven days. And every open vessel that has no cover fastened on it
is unclean. Whoever in the open field touches someone who was
killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone
or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. For the unclean they shall
take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and fresh water shall be
added in a vessel. Then a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it
in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings
and on the persons who were there and on whoever touched the bone,
or the slain or the dead or the grave. And the clean person shall
sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day.
Thus on the seventh day he shall cleanse him, and he shall wash his
clothes and bathe himself in water, and at evening he shall be
clean.
“If the man who is unclean does not cleanse himself, that person
shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, since he has
defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. Because the water for impurity
has not been thrown on him, he is unclean. And it shall be a
statute forever for them. The one who sprinkles the water for
impurity shall wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water
for impurity shall be unclean until evening. And whatever the
unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it
shall be unclean until evening.”
