Numbers 19

Revised Geneva Translation

19 And 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 so that they bring you a red cow, without blemish, in which is no spot, upon which never came yoke.

³ ‘And you shall give her to Eleazar the Priest, so that he may bring her outside the camp and cause her to be killed before his face.

⁴ ‘Then, Eleazar the Priest shall take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle it before the Tabernacle of the Congregation seven times,

⁵ ‘and cause the cow to be burnt in his sight. He shall burn her with her skin and her flesh and her blood and her dung.

⁶ ‘Then the Priest shall take cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet lace and cast them in the midst of the fire where the cow burns.

⁷ ‘Then the Priest shall wash his clothes; and he shall wash his flesh in water and then come into the camp. And the Priest shall be unclean until the evening.

⁸ ‘Also, he who burns her shall wash his clothes in water, and wash his flesh in water, and be unclean until evening.

⁹ ‘And a clean man shall take up the ashes of the cow and put them outside the camp in a clean place. And it shall be kept for the Congregation of the children of Israel for a sprinkling water. It is a Sin Offering.

¹⁰ ‘Therefore, he who gathers the ashes of the cow shall wash his clothes and remain unclean until evening. And it shall be a Statute, forever, to the children of Israel and to the stranger who dwells among them.

¹¹ ‘He who touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean for seven days.

¹² ‘He shall purify himself with the water on the third day; and the seventh day he shall be clean. But, if he does not purify himself on the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

¹³ ‘Whoever touches the corpse of any man who is dead, and does not purge himself, defiles the Tabernacle of the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from Israel, because the sprinkling water was not sprinkled upon him. He shall be unclean; and his uncleanness shall remain upon him.

¹⁴ ‘This is the Law: When a man dies in a tent, all who come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁵ ‘And all the vessels that are open, which have no covering fastened upon them, shall be unclean.

¹⁶ ‘Also, whoever touches one who is killed with a sword in the field, or a dead person, or a bone of a dead man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.

¹⁷ ‘Therefore, for an unclean person, they shall take from the burnt ashes of the Sin Offering; and pure water shall be put on them in a vessel.

¹⁸ ‘And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it upon the tent and upon all the vessels and on the people who were inside, and upon him who touched the bone, or the killed, or the dead, or the grave.

¹⁹ ‘And the clean person shall sprinkle upon the unclean on the third day and the seventh day. And he shall purify himself on the seventh day, and wash his clothes, and wash himself in water, and shall be clean at evening.

²⁰ ‘But the man who is unclean and does not purify himself, that person shall be cut off from among the Congregation, because he has defiled the Sanctuary of the LORD; and the sprinkling water has not been sprinkled upon him. He shall be unclean.

²¹ ‘And it shall be a perpetual Law to them, that he who sprinkles the sprinkling water shall wash his clothes and he who touches the sprinkling water shall be unclean until evening.

²² ‘And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean. And the person who touches him shall be unclean until the evening.’”