Numbers 19

The Voice

Eternal One: ² I want to remind you about a decree of instruction by My command: “When they need to make a sin offering, instruct the Israelites to bring a young female cow, red in color, that is perfect in every visible way and has never worked. ³ Hand it over to the priest, Eleazar. He will then oversee its slaughter outside the camp, ⁴ dip his finger in the blood, splatter the blood seven times in the direction of the congregation tent’s opening, ⁵ and make sure that the carcass is burned, every bit of it—hide, flesh, blood, and dung. ⁶ While the cow burns, the priest will throw onto the fire some aromatic woods—cedar and hyssop—bound together by scarlet thread. ^7-8 Afterward, the priest should carefully wash himself and his clothes; then he can reenter the camp. Likewise the one who burns the fire should also wash himself and his clothes. But recognize that they are ritually impure until that evening. ^9-10 Someone else, someone ritually pure, should collect the ashes that remain from the completely burnt offering and put them all in a ritually pure place outside the boundaries of the camp. Then that person, too, should wash his clothes and understand he is ritually impure until evening. The ashes will be used to make a cleansing solution for the Israelites. This is a sin offering.

Remember and observe this perpetual statute concerning ritual contamination and cleansing, which applies to the foreigner who lives among you as well as to all native Israelites: ¹¹ Anyone who touches a dead human body will be considered impure for a week. ¹² Midweek and at the end, on the third and seventh days, he will use the burnt offering ashes dissolved in water to purify himself. If he fails to do so, he will not be pure. ¹³ This is a serious business, for everyone who comes into contact with a human corpse must purify himself like this. Otherwise, he pollutes My tent and so must be banished from Israel. If he has not been doused with the special cleansing water, his impurity still clings to him. He is impure.

¹⁴ Now if someone dies indoors, then everyone entering or inside the tent will be impure for the full seven days. ¹⁵ Not only that, but any cup, jar, or bowl that is open or didn’t otherwise have a cover attached when that person died will also be impure. ¹⁶ Out in the countryside, the same general rule applies. If someone happens to touch a person either killed outright or who simply died naturally, or if he touches a single human bone or a whole gravesite, he shall be impure for the week. ¹⁷ For such a person, take some of the aforesaid ashes mixed in a container with running water. ¹⁸ A person who is ritually pure should then dip a hyssop branch into the water and splash some water on the contaminated home—and on all the things in it and the people, too—or on the person who touched a corpse or some part of a dead person. ¹⁹ The ritually pure person must do this for the impure individual on the third and seventh days. Then he must purify himself, washing his body and clothes in water, so that he’s pure when it becomes evening on the seventh day.

²⁰ Those who don’t so purify themselves shall be cast out of the community because they have scorned and polluted My holy place. Since the cleansing water hasn’t been splashed on them, they are impure. ²¹ This is a perpetual decree. The person who sprinkles the water and the one who touches the water for impurity also needs to wash his clothes after handling the cleansing water and will be ritually impure until evening. ²² Everything any impure person touches will be impure and make others who touch it impure, too, until evening.