Numbers 19:1-14

¹And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron,

²This is the rule of the law which the Lord has made, saying, Give orders to the children of Israel to give you a red cow without any mark on her, and on which the yoke has never been put:

³Give her to Eleazar the priest and let him take her outside the tent-circle and have her put to death before him.

⁴Then let Eleazar the priest take some of her blood on his finger, shaking the blood seven times in the direction of the front of the Tent of meeting:

⁵And the cow is to be burned before him, her skin and her flesh and her blood and her waste are to be burned:

⁶Then let the priest take cedar-wood and hyssop and red thread, and put them into the fire where the cow is burning.

⁷And the priest, after washing his clothing and bathing his body in water, may come back to the tent-circle, and will be unclean till evening.

⁸And he who does the burning is to have his clothing washed and his body bathed in water and be unclean till evening.

⁹Then let a man who is clean take the dust of the burned cow and put it outside the tent-circle in a clean place, where it is to be kept for the children of Israel and used in making the water which takes away what is unclean: it is a sin-offering.

¹⁰And he who takes up the dust of the burned cow is to have his clothing washed with water and be unclean till evening: this is to be a law for ever, for the children of Israel as well as for the man from another country who is living among them.

¹¹Anyone touching a dead body will be unclean for seven days:

¹²On the third day and on the seventh day he is to make himself clean with the water, and so he will be clean: but if he does not do this on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

¹³Anyone touching the body of a dead man without making himself clean in this way, makes the House of the Lord unclean; and that man will be cut off from Israel: because the water was not put on him, he will be unclean; his unclean condition is unchanged.

¹⁴This is the law when death comes to a man in his tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, will be unclean for seven days.