Leviticus 14
Common English Bible
Persons with skin disease
14 The Lord said to Moses, 2 This will be the Instruction for anyone with skin disease[a] at the time of purification: When it has been reported to the priest, 3 he will go outside the camp. If the priest sees that the person afflicted with skin disease has been healed of the infection, 4 the priest will order that two birds—wild[b] and clean—and cedarwood, crimson yarn, and hyssop be brought for the person who needs purification. 5 The priest will order that one bird be slaughtered over fresh water in a pottery jar. 6 He will then take the other wild bird, along with the cedarwood, crimson yarn, and hyssop, and will dip all of this into the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the fresh water. 7 He will sprinkle the person who needs purification from skin disease seven times and declare that they are clean. Then the priest will release the wild bird into the countryside. 8 The person who needs purification will then wash their clothes, shave off all of their hair, and bathe in water; at that point, they will be clean. After that, they can return to the camp, but they must live outside their tent for seven days. 9 On the seventh day, the person must shave off all their hair again: head, beard, and eyebrows—everything. They must wash their clothes and bathe in water; then they will be clean again.
10 On the eighth day, that person must take two flawless male sheep, one flawless one-year-old ewe, a grain offering of three-tenths of an ephah[c] of choice flour mixed with oil, and one log[d] of oil. 11 The priest performing the purification will place these and the person needing purification before the Lord at the meeting tent’s entrance.
12 The priest will take one of the male sheep and present it as a compensation offering, along with the log of oil, and will lift them as an uplifted offering before the Lord. 13 The priest will slaughter the sheep at the same place where the purification offering and the entirely burned offering are slaughtered: in the holy area. The compensation offering, like the purification offering, belongs to the priest; it is most holy. 14 The priest will take some of the blood from the compensation offering and will put it on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the person needing purification. 15 Then the priest will take some of the log of oil and pour it into his left palm. 16 The priest will then dip his right finger into the oil and sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the Lord. 17 Then the priest will put some of the oil that is left in his hand on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the person needing purification—this oil will be placed on top of the blood of the compensation offering. 18 The priest will put whatever is left of the oil in his hand on the head of the person needing purification. In this way, the priest will make reconciliation for the person before the Lord.
19 The priest will then perform the purification offering and make reconciliation for the person needing purification from their uncleanness. After that, the entirely burned offering will be slaughtered. 20 The priest will offer up the entirely burned offering and the grain offering on the altar. In this way, the priest will make reconciliation for the person, and they will be clean again.
21 Now if the person is poor and cannot afford these things, they can bring one male sheep as a compensation offering, to be lifted up in order to make reconciliation for them; a grain offering of one-tenth of an ephah of choice flour mixed with oil; a log of oil; 22 and two turtledoves or two pigeons, whatever they can afford—one as a purification offering and the other as an entirely burned offering. 23 On the eighth day, they must bring these items for their purification to the priest at the meeting tent’s entrance before the Lord.
24 The priest will take the male sheep for the compensation offering and the log of oil, and will lift them as an uplifted offering before the Lord. 25 The priest will slaughter the sheep for the compensation offering and will take some of its blood and put it on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the person needing purification. 26 The priest will pour some of the oil into his left palm. 27 Next, the priest will sprinkle some of the oil seven times before the Lord using his right finger. 28 The priest will then put some of the oil that is in his hand on the right earlobe, the right thumb, and the right big toe of the person needing purification—on top of the same places as the blood of the compensation offering. 29 The priest will put whatever is left of the oil in his hand on the head of the person needing purification, to make reconciliation for them before the Lord.
30 The person will then offer one of the turtledoves or pigeons, whatever they can afford— 31 one as a purification offering and the other as an entirely burned offering along with the grain offering.[e] In this way, the priest will make reconciliation before the Lord for the person needing purification.
32 This is the Instruction concerning those who have an infection of skin disease but who cannot afford the normal means of purification.
Houses with skin disease
33 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: 34 When you enter the land of Canaan, which I am giving to you as a possession, and I put an infection of skin disease on a house in the land you possess, 35 the homeowner must come and tell the priest, “I think some sort of infection is in my house.” 36 The priest will order that the house be emptied before he comes to examine it so that nothing else in the house will become unclean. After that, the priest will come to examine the house. 37 If he examines the infection, and the infection in the walls of the house consists of greenish or reddish depressions, which appear to be deeper than the surface of the wall, 38 the priest will exit the house, go to the front door, and quarantine the house for seven days. 39 On the seventh day, the priest will return. If he finds that the infection has spread over the walls of the house, 40 the priest will order the stones in which the infection is found to be pulled out and discarded outside the city in an unclean area. 41 The inside of the house will then be scraped on all sides, and the plaster that has been scraped off must be dumped outside the city in an unclean area. 42 Then different stones will be used in place of the first ones, and new coating will be used to replaster the house.
43 If the infection breaks out again in the house after the stones have been pulled out and the house scraped and replastered, 44 the priest will return. If he finds that the infection has spread throughout the house, it is a case of infectious skin disease in the house; the house is unclean. 45 The house must be destroyed—its stones, wood, and all the plaster in the house. All of it must be taken outside the city to an unclean area. 46 Anyone who enters the house during the entire period when it is quarantined will be unclean until evening. 47 Anyone who lies down in the house must wash their clothes. Anyone who eats in the house must also wash their clothes.
48 But if the priest arrives and finds that the infection has not spread after the house was replastered, the priest will declare the house clean because the infection has been healed. 49 To cleanse the house, the priest will take two birds, cedarwood, crimson yarn, and hyssop. 50 He will slaughter one bird over fresh water in a pottery jar. 51 He will then take the cedarwood, hyssop, and crimson yarn, along with the wild[f] bird, and will dip all of this into the fresh water and into the blood of the bird that was slaughtered. He will then sprinkle the house seven times. 52 In this way, the priest will cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, the fresh water, the wild bird, the cedarwood, the hyssop, and the crimson yarn. 53 Then he will release the wild bird outside the city into the countryside. In this way, he will make reconciliation for the house, and it will be clean.
Conclusion concerning skin disease
54 This concludes the Instruction concerning every infection of skin disease: for scabies, 55 for skin disease on clothing or in houses, 56 and for swelling, scabs, or shiny spots, 57 in order to determine when it is unclean or clean. This concludes the Instruction concerning skin disease.
Footnotes
- Leviticus 14:2 The precise meaning is uncertain; traditionally leprosy—a term used for several different skin diseases.
- Leviticus 14:4 Or live or healthy; also in 14:6-7
- Leviticus 14:10 Heb lacks ephah; an ephah is approximately twenty quarts dry.
- Leviticus 14:10 Heb log; two-thirds of a pint; also in 14:12, 15, 21, 24
- Leviticus 14:31 LXX, Syr; MT repeats whatever they can afford at the beginning of 14:31.
- Leviticus 14:51 Or live or healthy
Leviticus 14
King James Version
14 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:
3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper;
4 Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
5 And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water:
6 As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water:
7 And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.
8 And he that is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, and shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean: and after that he shall come into the camp, and shall tarry abroad out of his tent seven days.
9 But it shall be on the seventh day, that he shall shave all his hair off his head and his beard and his eyebrows, even all his hair he shall shave off: and he shall wash his clothes, also he shall wash his flesh in water, and he shall be clean.
10 And on the eighth day he shall take two he lambs without blemish, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish, and three tenth deals of fine flour for a meat offering, mingled with oil, and one log of oil.
11 And the priest that maketh him clean shall present the man that is to be made clean, and those things, before the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation:
12 And the priest shall take one he lamb, and offer him for a trespass offering, and the log of oil, and wave them for a wave offering before the Lord:
13 And he shall slay the lamb in the place where he shall kill the sin offering and the burnt offering, in the holy place: for as the sin offering is the priest's, so is the trespass offering: it is most holy:
14 And the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot:
15 And the priest shall take some of the log of oil, and pour it into the palm of his own left hand:
16 And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord:
17 And of the rest of the oil that is in his hand shall the priest put upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass offering:
18 And the remnant of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall pour upon the head of him that is to be cleansed: and the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord.
19 And the priest shall offer the sin offering, and make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed from his uncleanness; and afterward he shall kill the burnt offering:
20 And the priest shall offer the burnt offering and the meat offering upon the altar: and the priest shall make an atonement for him, and he shall be clean.
21 And if he be poor, and cannot get so much; then he shall take one lamb for a trespass offering to be waved, to make an atonement for him, and one tenth deal of fine flour mingled with oil for a meat offering, and a log of oil;
22 And two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, such as he is able to get; and the one shall be a sin offering, and the other a burnt offering.
23 And he shall bring them on the eighth day for his cleansing unto the priest, unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, before the Lord.
24 And the priest shall take the lamb of the trespass offering, and the log of oil, and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the Lord:
25 And he shall kill the lamb of the trespass offering, and the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot:
26 And the priest shall pour of the oil into the palm of his own left hand:
27 And the priest shall sprinkle with his right finger some of the oil that is in his left hand seven times before the Lord:
28 And the priest shall put of the oil that is in his hand upon the tip of the right ear of him that is to be cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot, upon the place of the blood of the trespass offering:
29 And the rest of the oil that is in the priest's hand he shall put upon the head of him that is to be cleansed, to make an atonement for him before the Lord.
30 And he shall offer the one of the turtledoves, or of the young pigeons, such as he can get;
31 Even such as he is able to get, the one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering, with the meat offering: and the priest shall make an atonement for him that is to be cleansed before the Lord.
32 This is the law of him in whom is the plague of leprosy, whose hand is not able to get that which pertaineth to his cleansing.
33 And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying,
34 When ye be come into the land of Canaan, which I give to you for a possession, and I put the plague of leprosy in a house of the land of your possession;
35 And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house:
36 Then the priest shall command that they empty the house, before the priest go into it to see the plague, that all that is in the house be not made unclean: and afterward the priest shall go in to see the house:
37 And he shall look on the plague, and, behold, if the plague be in the walls of the house with hollow strakes, greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall;
38 Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house, and shut up the house seven days:
39 And the priest shall come again the seventh day, and shall look: and, behold, if the plague be spread in the walls of the house;
40 Then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is, and they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city:
41 And he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about, and they shall pour out the dust that they scrape off without the city into an unclean place:
42 And they shall take other stones, and put them in the place of those stones; and he shall take other morter, and shall plaister the house.
43 And if the plague come again, and break out in the house, after that he hath taken away the stones, and after he hath scraped the house, and after it is plaistered;
44 Then the priest shall come and look, and, behold, if the plague be spread in the house, it is a fretting leprosy in the house; it is unclean.
45 And he shall break down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, and all the morter of the house; and he shall carry them forth out of the city into an unclean place.
46 Moreover he that goeth into the house all the while that it is shut up shall be unclean until the even.
47 And he that lieth in the house shall wash his clothes; and he that eateth in the house shall wash his clothes.
48 And if the priest shall come in, and look upon it, and, behold, the plague hath not spread in the house, after the house was plaistered: then the priest shall pronounce the house clean, because the plague is healed.
49 And he shall take to cleanse the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:
50 And he shall kill the one of the birds in an earthen vessel over running water:
51 And he shall take the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slain bird, and in the running water, and sprinkle the house seven times:
52 And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet:
53 But he shall let go the living bird out of the city into the open fields, and make an atonement for the house: and it shall be clean.
54 This is the law for all manner of plague of leprosy, and scall,
55 And for the leprosy of a garment, and of a house,
56 And for a rising, and for a scab, and for a bright spot:
57 To teach when it is unclean, and when it is clean: this is the law of leprosy.
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