Numbers 19:1-13

English Standard Version

Laws for Purification

19 Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ² “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, ^(A)and on which a yoke has never come. ³ And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and ^(B)it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. ⁴ And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and ^(C)sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. ⁵ And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. ^(D)Its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. ⁶ And the priest shall take ^(E)cedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. ⁷ Then the priest ^(F)shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. But the priest shall be unclean until evening. ^8 (G)The one who burns the heifer ^(H)shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. ⁹ And a man who is clean shall gather up ^(I)the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a ^(J)clean place. And they shall be kept for the water for ^(K)impurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. ¹⁰ And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer ^(L)shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.

^11 (M)“Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days. ¹² He ^(N)shall cleanse himself with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean. But if he does not cleanse himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not become clean. ¹³ Whoever touches a dead person, the body of anyone who has died, and does not cleanse himself, ^(O)defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, ^(P)and that person shall be cut off from Israel; because the water for impurity was not thrown on him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still on him.