33. The Lord told Moses and Aaron to say to the people:
34. After I have given you the land of Canaan as your permanent possession, here is what you must do, if I ever put mildew on the walls of any of your homes.
35. First, you must say to a priest, “I think mildew is on the wall of my house.”
36. The priest will reply, “Empty the house before I inspect it, or else everything in it will be unclean.”
37. If the priest discovers greenish or reddish spots that go deeper than the surface of the walls,
38. he will have the house closed for seven days.
39. Then he will return and check to see if the mildew has spread.
40-41. If so, he will order someone to scrape the plaster from the walls, remove the filthy stones, then haul everything off and dump it in an unclean place outside the town.
42. Afterwards the wall must be repaired with new stones and fresh plaster.
43. If the mildew appears a second time,
44. the priest will come and say, “This house is unclean. It's covered with mildew that can't be removed.”
45. Then he will have the house torn down and every bit of wood, stone, and plaster hauled off to an unclean place outside the town.
46. Meanwhile, if any of you entered the house while it was closed, you will be unclean until evening.
47. And if you either slept or ate in the house, you must wash your clothes.
48. On the other hand, if the priest discovers that mildew hasn't reappeared after the house was newly plastered, he will say, “This house is clean—the mildew has gone.”
49. Then, to show that the house is now clean, he will get two birds, a stick of cedar wood, a piece of red yarn, and a branch from a hyssop plant and bring them to the house.
50. He will kill one of the birds over a clay pot of spring water