Numbers 19:1–10

Laws for Purification

19Now the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²“This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, ^mand on which a yoke has never come. ³And you shall give it to Eleazar the priest, and ⁿit shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered before him. ⁴And Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger, and ^osprinkle some of its blood toward the front of the tent of meeting seven times. ⁵And the heifer shall be burned in his sight. ^pIts skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned. ⁶And the priest shall take ^qcedarwood and hyssop and scarlet yarn, and throw them into the fire burning the heifer. ⁷Then the priest ^rshall 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. ^8sThe one who burns the heifer ^rshall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water and shall be unclean until evening. ⁹And a man who is clean shall gather up ^tthe ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a ^uclean place. And they shall be kept for the water for ^vimpurity for the congregation of the people of Israel; it is a sin offering. ¹⁰And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer ^rshall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. And this shall be a perpetual statute for the people of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourns among them.