¹Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and said, ²“This is the statute of the law which the Lord has commanded, saying, ‘Tell the sons of Israel to bring to you a perfect red heifer, which has no blemish, on which no yoke has gone, ³and you will give it to Eleazar the priest, and he will bring it outside the camp, and he will have it slaughtered in his presence. ⁴And Eleazar the priest will take some of its blood on his finger, and he will sprinkle some of its blood straight in front of the tent of contact seven times. ⁵And he will burn the heifer before his eyes – its skin and its flesh – and he will burn its blood with its dung. ⁶And the priest will take cedar wood and hyssop, and scarlet material, and he will throw them into the middle of the conflagration of the heifer. ⁷Then the priest will wash his clothes, and he will wash his body with water, and after that he will go to the camp, and the priest will be unclean until the evening. ⁸So he who burns it will wash his clothes in water, and he will wash his body with water, and he will be unclean until the evening. ⁹And a man who is clean will collect the ashes of the heifer, and he will deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and it will be a thing kept for the congregation of the sons of Israel, for water of impurity. It is a sin-offering. ¹⁰Then he who has collected the ashes of the heifer will wash his clothes, and he will be unclean until the evening, and it will be an age-abiding statute for the sons of Israel and for the foreigner who is temporarily resident in their midst. ¹¹He who touches the dead body of any person will be unclean for seven days. ¹²He will have himself propitiated by it on the third day, and on the seventh day he will be clean, but if he does not have himself propitiated on the third day, then on the seventh day he will not be clean. ¹³Everyone who touches the dead body of a man who has died and does not have himself propitiated defiles the Lord's tabernacle, and that person will be cut off from Israel, for the water of impurity has not been sprinkled on him. He will be unclean – his uncleanness will still be on him. ¹⁴This is the law: if a man dies in a tent, everyone who comes into the tent and everyone who is in the tent will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁵And every vessel that is open, which does not have a lid screwed on to it, is unclean. ¹⁶And anyone in an open field who touches anyone fallen by the sword or dead or a man's bone or a grave will be unclean for seven days. ¹⁷And they will take for him who is unclean some dust from the burnt sin-offering, and he will put running water on it in a vessel, ¹⁸and a clean man will take hyssop and dip it in the water and sprinkle it on the tent and on all the furnishings and on the people who were there, and on him who touched the bone or the fallen man or the dead or the grave. ¹⁹And he who is clean will sprinkle it on him who is unclean, on the third day and on the seventh day, and he will expiate him on the seventh day, and he will wash his clothes and wash himself in water, and he will be clean in the evening. ²⁰And as for any man who becomes unclean but does not have himself propitiated, that person will be cut off from the midst of the convocation, for he has defiled the Lord's sanctuary. The water of impurity was not sprinkled on him; he is unclean. ²¹And it will be an age-abiding statute to them, and he who sprinkles the water of impurity will wash his clothes, and he who touches the water of impurity will be unclean until the evening. ²²And anyone whom he who is unclean touches will become unclean, and any person who touches him will become unclean until the evening.’ ”