Numbers 19:1–10

PURIFICATION RITUAL

19The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, ²“This is the legal statute that the Lord has commanded: Instruct the Israelites to bring you an unblemished red cow that has no defect and has never been yoked.^{p 3}Give it to the priest Eleazar,^q and he will have it brought outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence. ⁴The priest Eleazar is to take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the tent of meeting. ⁵The cow is to be burned in his sight. Its hide, flesh, and blood, are to be burned along with its waste. ⁶The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson yarn,^a and throw them onto the fire where the cow is burning. ⁷Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; after that he may enter the camp, but he will remain ceremonially unclean until evening. ⁸The one who burned the cow must also wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and he will remain unclean until evening.

⁹“A man who is clean is to gather up the cow’s ashes and deposit them outside the camp in a ceremonially clean place. The ashes will be kept by the Israelite community for preparing the water to remove impurity; it is a sin offering.^{b 10}Then the one who gathers up the cow’s ashes must wash his clothes, and he will remain unclean until evening. This is a permanent statute for the Israelites and for the alien who resides among them.