Numbers 19
1GOD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:
2This is the ritual law that GOD has commanded:Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.
3You shall give it to Eleazar the priest. It shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.
4Eleazar the priest shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times toward the front of the Tent of Meeting.
5The cow shall be burned in his sight—its hide, flesh, and blood shall be burned, its dung included—
6and the priest shall take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson stuff, and throw them into the fire consuming the cow.
7The priest shall wash his garments and bathe in water; after that the priest may reenter the camp, but he shall be impure until evening.
8The one who performed the burning shall also wash their garments in water, bathe, and be impure until evening.
9Someone else who is pure shall gather up the ashes of the cow and deposit them outside the camp in a pure place, to be kept for water of lustration for the Israelite community. It is for purgation.
10The one who gathers up the ashes of the cow shall also wash their clothes and be impure until evening.This shall be a permanent law for the Israelites and for the strangers who reside among them.
11Anyone who touches the corpse of any human being shall be impure for seven days.
12They shall undergo cleansing with [the ashes] on the third day and on the seventh day, and then be pure; if they fail to undergo cleansing on the third and seventh days, they shall not be pure.
13Whoever touches a corpse—the body of a person who has died—and does not undergo cleansing, defiles GOD’s Tabernacle; that person shall be cut off from Israel. Since the water of lustration was not dashed on them, they remain impure; their impurity is still upon them.
14This is the ritual: When a person dies in a tent, whoever enters the tent and whoever is in the tent shall be impure seven days;
15and every open vessel, with no lid fastened down, shall be impure.
16And in the open, anyone who touches a person who was killed or who died naturally, or human bone, or a grave, shall be impure seven days.
17Some of the ashes from the fire of purgation shall be taken for the impure person, and fresh water shall be added to them in a vessel.
18Then someone who is pure shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle on the tent and on all the vessels and people who were there, or on the one who touched the bones or the person who was killed or died naturally or the grave.
19The pure person shall sprinkle it upon the impure person on the third day and on the seventh day, thus cleansing that person by the seventh day. [The latter] shall then wash their clothes and bathe in water—and at nightfall shall be pure.
20If anyone who has become impure fails to undergo cleansing, that person shall be cut off from the congregation for having defiled GOD’s sanctuary. The water of lustration was not dashed on them—they are impure.
21That shall be for them a law for all time. Further, whoever sprinkled the water of lustration shall wash their clothes; and whoever touches the water of lustration shall be impure until evening.
22Whatever that impure person touches shall be impure; and the person who touches [that impure one] shall be impure until evening.