Numbers 5:13-22

The Voice

¹³ that is, if a man has sexual relations with her but her husband doesn’t know, even if no one can say for certain that she tarnished herself because no one saw or caught her, ¹⁴ and her husband feels suspicious and becomes jealous, whether or not she’s guilty; ¹⁵ then he should bring his wife to the priest along with the requisite offering: two quarts of barley flour. Because it’s an offering for this particular purpose, jealousy (namely, a grain offering that brings back to mind some kind of wrongdoing), he shouldn’t include any oil or incense with it.

^16-19 Then the priest will set her in front of Me, mix dust from the congregation tent’s floor into a jar of holy water, and loosen her hair. He’ll make her take an oath and hold the grain offering of jealousy while he holds the curse-causing, bitter water and says, “If you are innocent of this charge, if no man had sexual relations with you, if you didn’t reject your husband’s authority and tarnish yourself; then let this bitter water have no curse on you. ²⁰ But if you are guilty of rejecting your husband’s authority and having sexual relations with someone other than your husband,” ²¹ [here the priest should make the woman say the cursing-oath], “then may the Eternal One make your name a shunning reproach, an insult or a warning among the people, because you will have a miscarriage^[a] and your belly will swell. ²² If you are guilty, may this curse-causing water run through your bowels, make your belly swell, and your womb miscarry.” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Let it be so.”