²⁸ “Do not cut your bodies for the dead, and do not mark your skin with tattoos. I am the Lord.

Ceremonially Clean and Unclean Animals

14 “Since you are the people of the Lord your God, never cut yourselves or shave the hair above your foreheads in mourning for the dead.

²⁸ So they shouted louder, and following their normal custom, they cut themselves with knives and swords until the blood gushed out.

⁵ “The priests must not shave their heads or trim their beards or cut their bodies.

⁶ Both the great and the lowly will die in this land. No one will bury them or mourn for them. Their friends will not cut themselves in sorrow or shave their heads in sadness.

Instructions for the Priests

21 The Lord said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the priests, the descendants of Aaron.

“A priest must not make himself ceremonially unclean by touching the dead body of a relative.

³⁷ The people shave their heads and beards in mourning. They slash their hands and put on clothes made of burlap.

⁵ Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.

⁴ Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

¹⁶ He required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. ¹⁷ And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name.