1. AND THE Lord said to Moses and Aaron,
2. This is the ritual of the law which the Lord has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without spot, in which is no blemish, upon which a yoke has never come.
3. And you shall give her to Eleazar the priest, and he shall bring her outside the camp, and she shall be slaughtered before him.
4. Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger and sprinkle it toward the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times.
5. The heifer shall be burned in his sight, her skin, flesh, blood, and dung.
6. And the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet [stuff] and cast them into the midst of the burning heifer.
7. Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water; afterward he shall come into the camp, but he shall be unclean until evening.
8. He who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and shall be unclean until evening.
9. And a man who is clean shall collect the ashes of the heifer and put them outside the camp in a clean place, and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for impurity; it is a sin offering.
10. And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until evening. This shall be to the Israelites and to the stranger who sojourns among them a perpetual statute.
11. He who touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean for seven days.
12. He shall purify himself with the water for impurity [made with the ashes of the burned heifer] on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.
13. Whoever touches the corpse of any who has died and does not purify himself defiles the tabernacle of the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water for impurity was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is still upon him.
14. This is the law when a man dies in a tent: all who come into the tent and all who are in the tent shall be unclean for seven days.
15. And every open vessel, which has no covering fastened upon it, is unclean.
16. And whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword, or a dead body, or a bone of a dead man, or a grave, shall be unclean for seven days.
17. And for the unclean, they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering, and the running water shall be put with it 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 upon the persons who were there, and upon him who touched the bone, or the slain, or the naturally dead, or the grave.
19. And the clean person shall sprinkle [the water for purification] upon the unclean person on the third day and on the seventh day, and on the seventh day the unclean man shall purify himself, and wash his clothes and bathe 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. The water for purification has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.
21. And it shall be a perpetual statute to them. He who sprinkles the water for impurity [upon another] shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening.
22. And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.