 1 The Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying, 2 This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded saying, Speak to the children of Israel that they bring you a red heifer, a perfect one, in which there is no blemish, on which no yoke ever came. 3 You shall give her to Eleazar the priest so that he may bring her forth outside the camp. And he shall kill her before his face. 4 Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times. 5 He shall burn the heifer in his sight, her skin and her flesh and her blood with her dung, he shall burn. 6 The priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet, and throw it into the midst of the burning of the heifer. 7 Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water. Afterward he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the evening. 8 One 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 of the heifer and lay them outside the camp in a clean place and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for a water of separation. It is a cleansing for sin. 10 One who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. It shall be a statute forever to the children of Israel and to the stranger who lives among them. 11 One who touches the dead body of any man will be unclean seven days. 12 He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean. 13 Whoever touches the dead body of anyone who is dead and does not purify themselves defiles the tabernacle of the Lord. That soul shall be cut off from Israel because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon them, they shall be unclean. Their uncleanness is still upon them. 14 This is the law when a man dies in a tent. All who come into the tent and all in the tent will be unclean seven days. 15 Every open vessel which has no covering bound upon it, it is unclean. 16 Whoever touches one who is killed with a sword in the open fields or a dead body or a bone of a body or a grave shall be unclean seven days. 17 For the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of cleansing for sin, and running water shall be put to it in a vessel. 18 A clean person shall take hyssop and dip in the water, and sprinkle upon the tent and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons who were there, and upon one who touched a bone, or one killed, or one dead, or a grave. 19 The clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day, and on the seventh day. And on the seventh day he shall purify himself, and wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water. And he shall be clean at evening. 20 But the those who shall be unclean and not purify themselves, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because they have defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of separation has not been sprinkled upon them. They are unclean. 21 This shall be a perpetual law to them, that one who sprinkles the water of separation shall wash their clothes and one who touches the water of separation shall be unclean until evening. 22 Whatever the unclean touches shall be unclean and the soul who touches shall be unclean until evening.
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