The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Numbers 19
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses and to Aaron,
saying,
2 “This is the statute of the law which
Yahweh has commanded. Tellthe children
of Israel to bring you a red heifer without
spot, in which is no defect, and which was
never yoked.
3 You shall give her to Eleazar the priest,
and he shall bring her outside of the camp,
and one shall kill her before his face.
4 Eleazar the priest shall take some of
her blood with his finger, and sprinkle
her blood toward the front of the Tent of
Meeting seven times.
5 One shall burn the heifer in his sight;
her skin, andhermeat, andher blood, with
her dung, shall he burn.
6 The priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the middle
of the burning of the heifer.
7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes,
and he shall bathe his flesh in water, and
afterward he shall come into the camp,
and the priest shall be unclean until the
evening.
8 He who burns her shall wash his
clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.
9 “A man who is clean shall gather up the
ashes ofthe heifer, and lay them up outside
of the camp in a clean place; and it shall be
kept for the congregation of the children
of Israel for use in water for cleansing
impurity. It is a sin offering.
10 He who gathers the ashes of the heifer
shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening. It shall be to the children
of Israel, and to the stranger who lives
as a foreigner among them, for a statute
forever.
11 “He who touches the dead body of any
man shall be unclean seven days.
12 He shall purify himself with water
on the third day, and on the seventh day
he shall be clean; but if he doesn’t purify
himself the third day, then the seventh day
he shall not be clean.
13 Whoever touches a dead person, the
body of a man who has died, and doesn’t
purify himself, defiles Yahweh’s tabernacle; and that soul shall be cut off from
Israel; because the water for impurity was
not sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean.
His uncleanness is yet on him.
14 “This is the law when a man dies in
a tent: everyone who comes into the tent,
and everyone who is in the tent, shall be
unclean seven days.
15 Every open vessel, which has no covering bound on it, is unclean.
16 “Whoever in the open field touches
one who is slain with a sword, or a dead
body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall
be unclean seven days.
17 “For the unclean, they shall take of
the ashes of the burning of the sin offering; and running water shall be poured on
them in a vessel.
18 A clean person shall take hyssop, dip
it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent,
on allthe vessels, on the persons who were
there, and on him who touched the bone,
or the slain, or the dead, or the grave.
19 The clean person shall sprinkle on
the unclean on the third day, and on the
seventh day. On the seventh day, he shall
purify him. He shall wash his clothes and
bathe himself in water, and shall be clean
at evening.
20 Butthe man who shall be unclean, and
shall not purify himself, that soul shall be
cut off from among the assembly, because
he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh.
The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him. He is unclean.
21 It shall be a perpetual statute to them.
He who sprinkles the water for impurity
shall wash his clothes, and he who touches
the water for impurity shall be unclean
until evening.
22 “Whatever the unclean person
touches shall be unclean; and the soul that
touches it shall be unclean until evening.”