Our Lord & Savior

The Book of Numbers: Part 2

Laws of Purification

(Numbers 19:1-22)

1: The Lord communicated to Moses and Aaron, stating:

2: This is the decree of the law which the Lord has ordained, instructing: Convey to the Israelites that they are to present a flawless red heifer, unblemished and never subjected to a yoke.

3: You are to deliver it to Eleazar the priest, so he may lead it outside the camp, and it shall be slaughtered in his presence.

4: Eleazar the priest is to apply its blood with his finger, sprinkling the blood seven times directly in front of the tabernacle of assembly.

5: The heifer shall be incinerated in his view; its hide, flesh, blood, and offal are to be consumed by fire.

6 The priest is to take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them into the burning heifer.

7 The priest must then wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; afterward, he may enter the camp, but he will be unclean until evening.

8 The one who burns the heifer must also wash his clothes in water, bathe his body in water, and will be unclean until evening.

9 A man who is clean shall collect the heifer's ashes and place them outside the camp in a clean area; they are to be kept for the Israelite community for use in the water of cleansing—it is a sin offering.

10 The one who collects the heifer's ashes must wash his clothes and will be unclean until evening. This shall be a lasting ordinance for the Israelites and for the foreigners residing among them.

11 Anyone who touches the corpse of any person shall be unclean for seven days.

12 They must purify themselves with it on the third day, and on the seventh day, they will be clean. However, if they do not purify themselves on the third day, they will not be clean on the seventh day.

13 Anyone who touches a corpse and fails to purify themselves defiles the Lord's tabernacle. That person shall be cut off from Israel because they were not sprinkled with the cleansing water, and their impurity remains on them.

14 This is the statute when a person dies in a tent: anyone entering the tent and everything in the tent will be unclean for seven days.

15 Any open container without a lid fastened on it will be unclean.

16 Whoever touches someone killed with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or human bones, or a grave, will be unclean for seven days.

17 To purify an unclean person, they must take some of the ashes of the burnt purification heifer and add fresh water to them in a vessel.

18 A clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, all the furnishings, and the people there, and on anyone who touched a bone, the slain, the dead, or a grave.

19 The clean person is to sprinkle the unclean on the third and seventh days; on the seventh day, he shall purify himself, wash his clothes, bathe in water, and be clean by evening.

20 But if a man remains unclean and does not purify himself, he shall be cut off from the community because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of separation has not been sprinkled on him; he is unclean.

21 It shall be a lasting ordinance that the one who sprinkles the water of separation must wash their clothes, and anyone who touches the water of separation will be unclean until evening.

22 Anything that the unclean person touches becomes unclean, and the person who touches it will be unclean until evening.