[1] Now the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron, [2] "This is the statute of
the law which the LORD has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring
you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and upon
which a yoke has never come. [3] And you shall give her to Elea'zar the
priest, and she shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him;
[4] and Elea'zar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger,
and sprinkle some of her blood toward the front of the tent of meeting
seven times. [5] And the heifer shall be burned in his sight; her skin, her
flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall be burned; [6] and the priest
shall take cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet stuff, and cast them into the
midst of the burning of the heifer. [7] Then the priest shall wash his
clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he shall come into the
camp; and the priest shall be unclean until evening. [8] He who burns the
heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and
shall be unclean until evening. [9] 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 congregation of the people of Israel
for the water for impurity, for the removal of sin. [10] And he who gathers
the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until
evening. And this shall be to the people of Israel, and to the stranger who
sojourns among them, a perpetual statute. [11] "He who touches the dead
body of any person shall be unclean seven days; [12] 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. [13] Whoever touches a dead person,
the body of any man 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 upon him, he shall be
unclean; his uncleanness is still on him. [14] "This is the law when a man
dies in a tent: every one who comes into the tent, and every one who is in
the tent, shall be unclean seven days. [15] And every open vessel, which
has no cover fastened upon it, is unclean. [16] Whoever in the open field
touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a man,
or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. [17] For the unclean they shall
take some ashes of the burnt sin offering, and running water shall be added
in a vessel; [18] then a clean person shall take hyssop, and dip it in the
water, and sprinkle it upon the tent, and upon all the furnishings, and
upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched the bone, or the
slain, or the dead, or the grave; [19] and the clean person shall sprinkle
upon 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. [20] "But the man who
is unclean and 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 upon him, he is unclean.
[21] And it shall be a perpetual statute for them. He who sprinkles the
water for impurity shall wash his clothes; and he who touches the water for
impurity shall be unclean until evening. [22] And whatever the unclean
person touches shall be unclean; and any one who touches it shall be
unclean until evening."