Exodus 29:35-37
New American Bible (Revised Edition)
35 Carry out all these commands in regard to Aaron and his sons just as I have given them to you.(A) Seven days you shall spend installing them, 36 (B)sacrificing a bull each day as a purification offering, to make atonement. Thus you shall purify the altar[a] by purging it, and you shall anoint it in order to consecrate it. 37 Seven days you shall spend in purging the altar and in consecrating it. Then the altar will be most sacred, and whatever touches it will become sacred.
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- 29:36–37 Purify the altar: the purpose of the purification offering here is to cleanse, or purify, the newly constructed altar of any defilement resulting from presumably minor and inadvertent sins, but the text is not explicit about what the offenses were or who committed them. So various theories have been proposed to explain the cause of the altar’s contamination. Note, however, that the offering appears to be demanded of Aaron and his sons; they are the ones who lay hands upon it (v. 10).
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