Numbers 5

1Yahweh said to Moses,

2“Command the Israelites to send out of the camp everyone who has a serious skin disease, everyone who has a discharge, and everyone who is unclean because of contact with a dead body.

3Send out both male and female; send them outside the camp, so that they do not make their camps unclean, where I live among them.”

4The Israelites did so; they sent them outside the camp. Just as Yahweh had told Moses, so the Israelites did.

5Yahweh said to Moses,

6“Tell the Israelites: When a man or a woman commits any of the sins that people commit, and so acts unfaithfully toward Yahweh, that person is guilty.

7They must confess the sin they have committed. The guilty person must make full restitution for the wrong, add a fifth of its value to it, and give it to the one who was wronged.

8But if the one who was wronged has no close relative to whom restitution for the wrong can be made, the restitution for the wrong belongs to Yahweh and goes to the priest, in addition to the ram of atonement with which the priest makes atonement for the guilty person.

9Every contribution from all the holy gifts that the Israelites bring to the priest will be his.

10Each person’s holy gifts belong to that person, but whatever anyone gives to the priest will belong to the priest.”

11Yahweh said to Moses,

12“Speak to the Israelites and tell them: Suppose a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him,

13and another man sleeps with her, and it is hidden from her husband and kept secret; she has made herself unclean, but there is no witness against her and she was not caught.

14And a spirit of jealousy comes over her husband and he is jealous of his wife, and she has made herself unclean—or a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he is jealous of his wife, though she has not made herself unclean.

15Then the man is to bring his wife to the priest. He is also to bring the offering required for her, a tenth of an ephah of barley flour. He must not pour oil on it or put frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance that brings guilt to remembrance.

16The priest is to bring her forward and have her stand before Yahweh.

17Then the priest is to take some holy water in a clay jar and take some of the dust from the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water.

18The priest is to have the woman stand before Yahweh, loosen the hair of her head, and place in her hands the grain offering of remembrance, which is the grain offering of jealousy. The priest himself is to hold the bitter water that brings a curse.

19Then the priest is to put her under oath and say to the woman, ‘If no man has slept with you, and if you have not gone astray and become unclean while under your husband’s authority, may you be unharmed by this bitter water that brings a curse.

20But if you have gone astray while under your husband’s authority and have made yourself unclean, and a man other than your husband has slept with you—’

21then the priest is to put the woman under the oath of the curse and say to her, ‘May Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh makes your thigh shrivel and your belly swell.

22May this water that brings a curse enter your body and make your belly swell and your thigh shrivel.’ And the woman is to say, ‘Amen, Amen.’

23The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and wash them off into the bitter water.

24He is to make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and the water that brings a curse will enter her and cause bitter suffering.

25The priest is to take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hand, wave the grain offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar.

26The priest is to take a handful of the grain offering as its memorial portion and burn it on the altar. After that he is to make the woman drink the water.

27When he has made her drink the water, if she has made herself unclean and has been unfaithful to her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter her and cause bitter suffering. Her belly will swell and her thigh will shrivel, and the woman will become a curse among her people.

28But if the woman has not made herself unclean and is clean, she will be unharmed and will conceive children.

29This is the law concerning jealousy, when a wife goes astray while under her husband’s authority and makes herself unclean,

30or when a spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife. He is to have the woman stand before Yahweh, and the priest is to carry out this entire law for her.

31The man will be free from guilt, but the woman will bear the consequences of her guilt.”