Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The Beginning of Wisdom

Psalm 111

Purification of a House

³³ Adonai spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying: ³⁴ “Suppose you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put a mark of tza’arat in a house in the land you possess. ³⁵ Then the one who owns the house should come and tell the kohen, saying: ‘Something like a mark has appeared in my house.’ ³⁶ The kohen is to order the house emptied before he goes in to examine the mark, so that nothing in the house might be made unclean. Then afterward the kohen is to enter to inspect the house. ³⁷ He is to examine the mark, and behold, if the mark is in the walls of the house with hollow streaks, greenish or reddish, and appears deeper than the wall, ³⁸ then the kohen is to go out of the house to the door and close up the house for seven days. ³⁹ Then the kohen is to come again on the seventh day, and behold, if the mark has spread in the walls of the house, ⁴⁰ then the kohen is to command that they take out the stones which are marked and throw them into an unclean place outside of the city. ⁴¹ He should also have the inside of the house scraped all throughout, and they are to dump the mortar that they scraped off outside of the city into an unclean place. ⁴² They may then take other stones and put them in the place of those stones. Likewise he can take other mortar, and plaster the house.

⁴³ “But suppose the contamination returns, breaking out in the house, after he has pulled out the stones and after he has scraped the house, and it has been re-plastered. ⁴⁴ Then the kohen is to go examine, and behold, if the plague has spread within the house, it is a destructive mildew inside. It is unclean. ⁴⁵ He is to break down the house, its stones, its timber, along with all the house’s mortar, and carry them out of the city into an unclean place.

⁴⁶ “Moreover, whoever goes into the house while it is shut up will be unclean until the evening. ⁴⁷ The one who lies down in the house must wash his clothes, and he who eats in the house must wash his clothes too.

⁴⁸ “But if the kohen comes in, inspects it, and behold, the plague has not spread within the house after it was re-plastered, then he should pronounce the house clean, because the contamination is healed. ⁴⁹ In order to cleanse the house he is to take two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop. ⁵⁰ He is to kill one of the birds in a clay pot over living water. ⁵¹ Then he is to take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the scarlet and the living bird, and dip them into the blood of the slain bird as well as the living water, and sprinkle the house seven times. ⁵² He should cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, with the living water, with the living bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop and the scarlet. ⁵³ But he is to let the living bird go out of the city into the open field. So he is to make atonement for the house, and it will be clean.”

¹³ Keep the standard of sound words you have heard from me, in the faithfulness and love that are in Messiah Yeshua. ¹⁴ Guard the good that has been entrusted to you, through the Ruach ha-Kodesh who dwells in us.

¹⁵ You are aware that everyone in Asia has turned away from me—including Phygelus and Hermogenes. ¹⁶ May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my imprisonment. ¹⁷ On the contrary, when he was in Rome he zealously searched for me and found me. ¹⁸ May the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord in that day! You know very well how much he served in Ephesus.