Numbers 19:11-22

Common English Bible

Contact with a dead body

¹¹ The person who touches the dead body of any human will be unclean for seven days. ¹² That person must be cleansed with water on the third and seventh days to be clean. If he fails to be cleansed with water on the third and seventh days, he will not be clean. ¹³ Anyone who touches the body of a human who has died and doesn’t cleanse himself defiles the Lord’s dwelling. Such persons must be cut off from Israel because the water of purification wasn’t sprinkled on them. They remain unclean.

¹⁴ This is the instruction: When anyone dies in a tent, all who go into the tent and all who are in the tent are unclean for seven days. ¹⁵ Any open jar without a sealed cover on it is unclean. ¹⁶ Anyone in the open field who touches a person slain by the sword, or who died naturally, or a human bone or a grave, will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁷ For the unclean person, they will take some of the ashes of the purification offering and place fresh water with it in a jar. ¹⁸ Then a clean person will take hyssop, dip it into the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the jars, on the people who were there, and on anyone who touched bone, the slain, the dead, or the grave. ¹⁹ On the third day and the seventh day the clean person will sprinkle it on the unclean, so that he will have purified him on the seventh day. He will then wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be clean at evening. ²⁰ Any person who is unclean and didn’t cleanse himself will be cut off from the assembly, because he has defiled the Lord’s sanctuary. He didn’t have the water of purification sprinkled on him. He is unclean. ²¹ This will be a permanent regulation for them. The one who sprinkles the water of purification will wash his own clothes. Anyone who touches the water of purification will be unclean until evening. ²² Whoever the unclean person touches will be unclean, and the one who touches the unclean will be unclean until evening.