Numbers 19 · Parashat Chukat

And the Lord spoke to Moshe and to Aharon, saying,

This is the ordinance of the Tora which the Lord has commanded, saying, Speak to the children of Yisra᾽el, that they bring thee a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and upon which never came a yoke:

and you shall give her to El῾azar the priest, that he may bring her outside the camp, and she shall be slaughtered before his face:

and El῾azar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle of her blood towards the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times:

and the heifer shall be burnt in his sight; her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung, shall be burnt:

and the priest shall take cedar wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and shall bathe his flesh in water, and afterwards he shall come into the camp, and the priest shall be unclean until the evening.

And he that burns her shall wash his clothes in water, and bathe his flesh in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.

And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Yisra᾽el for the water of sprinkling: it is a purification offering.

And he that gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening: and it shall be to the children of Yisra᾽el, and to the stranger that sojourns among them, for a statute for ever.

He that touches the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.

If he purify himself with it on the third day and on the seventh day, he shall be clean: but if he do not purify himself on the third day and the seventh day, he shall not be clean.

Whoever touches the dead body of any man that has died, and purifies not himself, he defiles the tabernacle of the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from Yisra᾽el: because the water of sprinkling was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean; his uncleanness is yet upon him.

This is the Tora: when a man dies in a tent, all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

And every open vessel, which has no covering bound upon it, is unclean.

And whoever touches one that is slain with a sword in the open field, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

And for an unclean person they shall take of the ashes of the burnt purification offering, and running water shall be put thereto in a vessel:

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 that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one slain, or one dead, or a grave:

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

But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the Lord: the water of sprinkling has not been sprinkled upon him; he is unclean.

And it shall be a perpetual statute to them, that he that sprinkles the water of sprinkling shall wash his clothes; and he that touches the water of sprinkling shall be unclean until the evening.

And whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean; and the person that touches it shall be unclean until the evening.