Open English Translation NUM Chapter 19

19 Then Yahweh told Mosheh and Aharon, 2 “This is a new law that Yahweh has commanded, ‘Tell the Israelis that they must bring you an unblemished red heifer with no defects and that has never had a yoke on its neck. 3 Give it to the priest Eleazar, and he must take it outside the camp and have someone slaughter it in front of him. 4 Then Eleazar must get some of its blood with his finger seven times and flick it onto the ground directly in front of the sacred tent. 5 Then while he watches, they must completely burn the heifer—its skin and flesh, and including its blood and dung. 6 Meanwhile, the priest must take some cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool, and throw them into the fire where the cow is burning. 7 Then the priest must wash his clothes and bathe. After that, he can return to the camp, but he’ll be ‘unclean’ until that evening. 8 The man who burnt the cow must also wash his clothes and bathe, and he will also be ‘unclean’ until that evening. 9 A ‘clean’ man must collect the cow’s ashes and place them in a sacred place outside the camp where they can be used for water for purification for the Israelis to purify from disobedience. 10 Then that man who collected the ashes must also wash his clothes and be ‘unclean’ until that evening. Those regulations will permanently apply both to Israelis and to foreigners living among them.

11 “ ‘All those who touch a dead, human body will be ‘unclean’ for seven days. 12 On the third day, they must purify themselves, and then they’ll be ‘clean’ on the seventh day. (If they don’t purify themselves, they’ll won’t become ‘clean’ on that seventh day—13 if they’ve touched a dead, human body and don’t purify themselves, that would defile Yahweh’s residence, and so they must be permanently removed from the camp. If the purifying water wasn’t sprinkled on them, that ‘uncleanness’ will remain on them.)

14 “ ‘This is the regulation if a person dies in a tent: Everyone who was in the tent, and everyone that enters afterwards, will all be ‘unclean’ for seven days, 15 and every container that doesn’t have its lid on becomes ‘unclean’. 16 Out in the countryside, who touches the corpse of someone killed in a fight, or any dead human body or bone or grave, will be ‘unclean’ for seven days. 17 Someone must take some of the ashes from that burnt cow, and put them into a jar with some fresh, running water, then pour some of it over them. 18 Then a man who’s ‘clean’ must dip some hyssop in that water and sprinkle it onto the tent and all the containers in it and everyone who lives in it or who touched the body or the bone or grave. 19 On the third day, that ‘clean’ man must sprinkle that water on the ‘unclean’ ones, and then must purify them on the seventh day. Then he himself must wash his clothes and bathe, and will be ‘unclean’ until that evening.

20 “ ‘Anyone who’s ‘unclean’ and doesn’t purify themself, that person will be permanently removed from the camp because they’ve made Yahweh’s sanctuary ‘unclean’. They didn’t sprinkle that purifying water on themself, so they remain ‘unclean’. 21 That will be a permanent regulation. The person who’s had the purifying water sprinkled on them must wash their clothes, and any person who sprinkles the water will be ‘unclean’ until that evening. 22 Anything touched by an ‘unclean’ person becomes ‘unclean’, and anyone who touches an ‘unclean’ person will become ‘unclean’ until that evening.