Numbers 19:1-10

Legacy Standard Bible

Statute of the Red Heifer

19 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ² “This is the statute of the law which Yahweh has commanded, saying, ‘Speak to the sons of Israel that they take to you a ^(A)red heifer without blemish, in which is no defect and ^(B)on which a yoke has never ^[a]been placed. ³ And you shall give it to ^(C)Eleazar the priest, and it shall ^(D)be brought outside the camp and be slaughtered in his presence. ⁴ Next Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and ^(E)sprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. ⁵ Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; ^(F)its hide and its flesh and its blood, with its refuse, shall be burned. ⁶ And the priest shall take ^(G)cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet material and cast it into the midst of the ^[b]burning heifer. ⁷ The priest ^(H)shall then wash his clothes and bathe his ^[c]body in water and afterward come into the camp, but the priest shall be unclean until evening. ⁸ The one who burns it shall also wash his clothes in water and bathe his ^[d]body in water and shall be unclean until evening. ⁹ Now a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and ^[e]the congregation of the sons of Israel shall keep it as ^(I)water to remove impurity; it is ^[f]purification from sin. ¹⁰ And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer ^(J)shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening; and it shall be a perpetual statute to the sons of Israel and to the sojourner who sojourns among them.