Numbers 19

English NASU 1989 - New American Standard Update - Only for Website

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1The LORD said to Moses and Aaron:

2"This is the regulation which the law of the LORD prescribes. Tell the Israelites to procure for you a red heifer that is free from every blemish and defect and on which no yoke has ever been laid.

3This is to be given to Eleazar the priest, to be led outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.

4Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood on his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the meeting tent.

5Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight, with its hide and flesh, its blood and offal;

6and the priest shall take some cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet yarn and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is being burned.

7The priest shall then wash his garments and bathe his body in water. He remains unclean until the evening, and only afterward may he return to the camp.

8Likewise, he who burned the heifer shall wash his garments, bathe his body in water, and be unclean until evening.

9Finally, a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them in a clean place outside the camp. There they are to be kept for preparing lustral water for the Israelite community. The heifer is a sin offering.

10He who has gathered up the ashes of the heifer shall also wash his garments and be unclean until evening. This is a perpetual ordinance, both for the Israelites and for the aliens residing among them.

11"Whoever touches the dead body of any human being shall be unclean for seven days;

12he shall purify himself with the water on the third and on the seventh day, and then he will be clean again. But if he fails to purify himself on the third and on the seventh day, he will not become clean.

13Everyone who fails to purify himself after touching the body of any deceased person, defiles the Dwelling of the LORD and shall be cut off from Israel. Since the lustral water has not been splashed over him, he remains unclean: his uncleanness still clings to him.

14"This is the law: When a man dies in a tent, everyone who enters the tent, as well as everyone already in it, shall be unclean for seven days;

15likewise, every vessel that is open, or with its lid unfastened, shall be unclean.

16Moreover, everyone who in the open country touches a dead person, whether he was slain by the sword or died naturally, or who touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

17For anyone who is thus unclean, ashes from the sin offering shall be put in a vessel, and spring water shall be poured on them.

18Then a man who is clean shall take some hyssop, dip it in this water, and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the vessels and persons that were in it, or on him who touched a bone, a slain person or other dead body, or a grave.

19The clean man shall sprinkle the unclean on the third and on the seventh day; thus purified on the seventh day, he shall wash his garments and bathe his body in water, and in the evening he will be clean again.

20Any unclean man who fails to have himself purified shall be cut off from the community, because he defiles the sanctuary of the LORD. As long as the lustral water has not been splashed over him, he remains unclean.

21This shall be a perpetual ordinance for you. "One who sprinkles the lustral water shall wash his garments, and anyone who comes in contact with this water shall be unclean until evening.

22Moreover, whatever the unclean person touches becomes unclean itself, and anyone who touches it becomes unclean until evening."

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