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.