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Numbers 19:1-22 — The Red Heifer

Num.19.1-22

¹Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²This is the statute of the law that Yahweh has commanded: Speak to the Israelites, and have them bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has ever come. ³You shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and he shall have it brought outside the camp, and it shall be slaughtered in his presence. ⁴Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle some of its blood seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting. ⁵Then the heifer shall be burned before his eyes—its hide, its flesh, its blood, and its dung shall be burned. ⁶The priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet yarn and throw them into the middle of the burning of the heifer. ⁷Then the priest 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. ⁸The one who burns it shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water, and he shall be unclean until evening. ⁹A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and place them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites as a reserve for water of cleansing ; it is a purification offering. ¹⁰The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. This shall be a perpetual statute for the Israelites and for the foreigner residing among them. ¹¹Whoever touches a dead person, any human corpse, shall be unclean for seven days. ¹²He shall purify himself with it on the third day and on the seventh day, and then he shall be clean; but if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall not be clean. ¹³Everyone who touches a dead person, the corpse of a human being who has died, and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of Yahweh, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still on him. ¹⁴This is the law: when a person dies in a tent, everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent shall be unclean for seven days. ¹⁵Every open vessel that has no cover tied on it is unclean. ¹⁶And whoever in the open field touches one slain by the sword, or a dead person, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days. ¹⁷For the unclean person they shall take some of the dust from the burning of the purification offering, and fresh water shall be put with it in a vessel. ¹⁸Then a man who is clean shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels, on the persons who were there, and on the one who touched the bone, or the slain one, or the dead person, or the grave. ¹⁹The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day he shall purify him. Then the person being cleansed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water, and he shall be clean by evening. ²⁰But the person who becomes unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from the midst of the assembly, because he has defiled the sanctuary of Yahweh. The water of cleansing has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean. ²¹And this shall be for them a perpetual statute: the one who sprinkles the water of cleansing shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water of cleansing shall be unclean until evening. ²²Everything that the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and the person who touches it shall be unclean until evening.

Translation Notes

4/11/2026

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