19:1¹ And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, 19:2 “This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, ‘Instruct the Israelites to bring² you a red³ heifer⁴ without blemish, which has is no defect,⁵ and which has never borne a yoke. 19:3 And you must give it to Eleazar the priest, so that he may take it outside the camp; and it must be slaughtered before him.⁶ 19:4 And Eleazar the priest is to take⁷ some of its blood with his finger, and sprinkle some of blood seven times⁸ directly in front of the tent of meeting. 19:5 And the heifer must be burnt⁹ in his sight; its skin, and its flesh, and its blood, with its offal is to be burnt.¹⁰ 19:6 And the priest must take cedar wood, and hyssop,¹¹ and scarlet wool, and throw them into the midst of the fire burning the heifer.¹² 19:7 Then the priest must wash¹³ his clothes, and bathe himself¹⁴ in water, and afterward he may come¹⁵ into the camp, but the priest will be ritually unclean until evening. 19:8 And the one who burns it¹⁶ must wash his clothes in water, and bathe himself in water, and will be ritually unclean until the evening.

19:9 Then a man who is ritually clean must gather up the ashes of the red heifer, and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept¹⁷ for the community of the Israelites for water for impurity¹⁸—it is a purification for sin.¹⁹ 19:10 And the one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes, and be ritually unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the alien who lives among them.

19:11 Whoever touches²⁰ the corpse²¹ of any person²² will be unclean²³ seven days. 19:12 He must purify himself²⁴ over it with water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and the seventh day, then he will not be clean. 19:13 Anyone who touches the corpse of any person who is dead and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. And that person must be cut off from Israel,²⁵ because the water for impurity was not sprinkled upon him. He will be unclean, his uncleanness remains on him.

19:14 This is the law: when a man dies²⁶ in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent, will be unclean seven days. 19:15 And every open container, that has no covering bound on it, is unclean. 19:16 And whoever touches one that is slain with a sword in the open fields,²⁷ or a dead body, or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean seven days.²⁸

19:17 For a ritually impure person you must take²⁹ some of the ashes of the burnt heifer³⁰ of purification for sin, and pour³¹ fresh running³² water over it in a vessel. 19:18 Then a ritually clean person must take hyssop, and dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, and on all its furnishings, and on the people who were there; or, upon the one who touched a bone, or one slain, or one who died, or a grave. 19:19 And the clean person must sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he must purify him,³³ and then he must wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and will be clean in the evening. 19:20 But the man who is unclean, and does not purify himself, that person must be cut off from among the community, because he has polluted the sanctuary of the LORD; the water for impurity was not sprinkled on him; he is unclean.

19:21 So this will be a perpetual ordinance for them: the one who sprinkles³⁴ the water for impurity must wash his clothes, and the one who touches the water for impurity will be unclean until the evening.³⁵ 19:22 And whatever the unclean person touches will be unclean, and the person who touches it will be unclean until the evening.