¹ And the LORD spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying,

² This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying, Speak to the sons of Israel that they bring you a red heifer, a perfect one, in which there is no blemish, on which no yoke ever came.

³ And you shall give her to Eleazar the priest that he may bring her forth outside the camp. And he shall kill her before his face.

⁴ And Eleazar the priest shall take of her blood with his finger and sprinkle of her blood directly before the tabernacle of the congregation seven times.

⁵ And he shall burn the heifer in his sight, her skin and her flesh and her blood with her dung, he shall burn.

⁶ And the priest shall take cedar-wood and hyssop and scarlet, and throw it into the midst of the burning of the heifer.

⁷ Then 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.

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

⁹ And a man that is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and lay up outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept for the congregation of the sons of Israel for a water of separation. It is a cleansing for sin.

¹⁰ And he who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until the evening. And it shall be to the sons of Israel, and to the stranger that lives among them, for a statute forever.

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

¹² He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean. But if he does not purify himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean.

¹³ Whoever touches the dead body of any man that is dead, and does not purify himself, defiles the tabernacle of the LORD. And that soul shall be cut off from Israel. Because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him, he shall be unclean. His uncleanness is still upon him.

¹⁴ This is the law when a man dies in a tent. All that come into the tent, and all in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁵ And every open vessel which has no covering bound upon it, it is unclean.

¹⁶ And whoever touches one that is killed with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁷ And for the unclean they shall take of the ashes of the burnt heifer of cleansing for sin, and running water shall be put to it in a vessel.

¹⁸ And a clean person shall take hyssop and dip in the water, and sprinkle upon the tent and upon all the vessels, and upon the persons that were there, and upon him that touched a bone, or one killed, or one dead, or a grave.

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

²⁰ But the man that shall be unclean, and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he has defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. The water of separation has not been sprinkled upon him. He is unclean.

²¹ And it shall be a perpetual law to them, that he who sprinkles the water of separation shall wash his clothes. And he that touches the water of separation shall be unclean until evening.

²² And whatever the unclean touches shall be unclean. And the soul who touches shall be unclean until evening.