¹The LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying ,

²“This is the statute of the law which the LORD has commanded . Tell the children of Israel to bring you a red heifer without spot , in which is no defect , and which was never yoked.

³You shall give her to Eleazar the priest , and he shall bring her outside of the camp , and one shall kill her before his face .

⁴Eleazar the priest shall take some of her blood with his finger, and sprinkle her blood towards the front of the Tent of Meeting seven times .

⁵One shall burn the heifer in his sight ; her skin , and her meat , and her blood , with her dung , shall he burn .

⁶The priest shall take cedar wood , hyssop, and scarlet , and cast it into the middle of the burning of the heifer .

⁷Then the priest shall wash his clothes, and he shall bathe his flesh in water , and afterward he shall come into the camp , and the priest shall be unclean until the evening .

⁸He who burns her shall wash his clothes in water , and bathe his flesh in water , and shall be unclean until the evening .

⁹“A man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer , and lay them up outside of the camp in a clean place ; and it shall be kept for the congregation of the children of Israel for use in water for cleansing impurity . It is a sin offering .

¹⁰He who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes, and be unclean until the evening . It shall be to the children of Israel , and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner amongst them , for a statute forever .

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

¹²He shall purify himself with water on the third day , and on the seventh day he shall be clean ; but if he doesn’t purify himself the third day , then the seventh day he shall not be clean .

¹³Whoever touches a dead person , the body of a man who has died , and doesn’t purify himself , defiles the LORD ’s tabernacle ; and that soul shall be cut off from Israel ; because the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him , he shall be unclean . His uncleanness is yet on him .

¹⁴“This is the law when a man dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days .

¹⁵Every open vessel , which has no covering bound on it , is unclean .

¹⁶“Whoever in the open field touches one who is slain with a sword , or a dead body , or a bone of a man , or a grave , shall be unclean seven days .

¹⁷“For the unclean , they shall take of the ashes of the burning of the sin offering ; and running water shall be poured on them in a vessel .

¹⁸A clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water , and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the vessels , on the persons who were there , and on him who touched the bone , or the slain , or the dead , or the grave .

¹⁹The clean person shall sprinkle on the unclean on the third day , and on the seventh day . On the seventh day , he shall purify him . He shall wash his clothes and bathe himself in water , and shall be clean at evening .

²⁰But the man who shall be unclean , and shall not purify himself , that soul shall be cut off from amongst the assembly , because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD . The water for impurity has not been sprinkled on him . He is unclean .

²¹It shall be a perpetual statute to them . He who sprinkles the water for impurity shall wash his clothes, and he who touches the water for impurity shall be unclean until evening .

²²“Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean ; and the soul that touches it shall be unclean until evening .”