Numbers 19

 
The Red Heifer – Wilderness Provision for Defilement
Numbers 19
 
 
CHAPTER 19
1 And Jehovah spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 2 This is the statute of the law which Jehovah hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without blemish, wherein is no defect, and upon which never came yoke; 3 and ye shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring it outside the camp, and one shall slaughter it before him. 4 And Eleazar the priest shall take of its blood with his finger, and shall sprinkle of its blood directly before the tent of meeting seven times. 5 And one shall burn the heifer before his eyes; its skin and its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall he burn. 6 And the priest shall take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast them into the midst of the burning of the heifer. 7 And the priest shall wash his garments, and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterwards he shall come into the camp; and the priest shall be unclean until the even; 8 and he that hath burned it shall wash his garments in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the even. 9 And a clean man shall gather the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the assembly of the children of Israel for a water of separation: it is a purification for sin. 10 And he that hath gathered the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the even. And it shall be unto the children of Israel, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among them, an everlasting statute. 11 He that toucheth a dead person, any dead body of a man, shall be unclean seven days. 12 He shall purify himself with it 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. 13 Whoever toucheth a dead person, the dead body of a man that is dead, and purifieth not himself, defileth the tabernacle of Jehovah; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel; for the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him: he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him. 14 This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: every one that cometh into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days. 15 And every open vessel, which hath no covering bound upon it, shall be unclean. 16 And every one that toucheth one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead person, or the bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days. 17 And they shall take for the unclean of the ashes of the purification-offering that hath been burned, and shall put running water thereon in a vessel; 18 and a clean man shall take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and upon all the utensils, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that hath touched the bone, or the one slain, or the dead person, or the grave; 19 and the clean shall sprinkle it on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day; and he shall purify him on the seventh day; and he shall wash his garments, and bathe himself in water, and shall be clean at even. 20 And the man that is unclean, and doth not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from the midst of the congregation, for he hath defiled the sanctuary of Jehovah: the water of separation hath not been sprinkled on him: he is unclean. 21 And it shall be an everlasting statute unto them. And he that sprinkleth the water of separation shall wash his garments, and he that toucheth the water of separation shall be unclean until even. 22 And whatever the unclean person toucheth shall be unclean; and the soul that toucheth it shall be unclean until even.