Our Father Speaks to Moses
5 1 Our Father spoke to Moses:
2 Command the Israelites to send from the camp everyone with a skin disease, everyone with a discharge, and everyone unclean from a corpse. 3 Send away both male and female; send them outside the camp, so they don't make their camp unclean, where I live among them.
4 The Israelites did this, sending them outside the camp; as our Father told Moses, the Israelites did.
Confession and Restitution
5 Then our Father spoke to Moses:
6 Tell Israel's people: When a man or woman commits any human sin, betraying me, that person is guilty, 7 They must confess the sin they committed, repay in full for the wrong, add a fifth, and give it to the one they wronged. 8 But if that person has no relative to receive restitution, it belongs to me and goes to the priest, plus the ram of atonement made for the guilty one. 9 Every contribution among all Israel's holy gifts brought to the priest belongs to him. 10 Everyone's holy gifts remain their own; what one gives the priest belongs to the priest.
The Jealousy Ordeal
11 Then our Father spoke to Moses:
12 Speak to the Israelites and tell them: If any man's wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him, 13 if another man sleeps with her, hidden from her husband, and she goes undetected though unclean — no witness against her, not caught in the act 14 —a spirit of jealousy comes over the husband, and he is jealous of his wife, who is unclean; or a spirit of jealousy comes over him, and he is jealous though she is not unclean 15 The man must bring his wife to the priest, along with her offering: about two quarts of barley flour. He must pour no oil on it and put no frankincense on it, because it is a grain offering of jealousy, a grain offering of remembrance, recalling guilt. 16 The priest shall bring her near and set her before our Father. 17 The priest shall take holy water in a clay jar, take dust from the tabernacle floor, and put it into the water. a a v17 This bitter-water ritual was a divine trial by ordeal: if the woman was guilty, she would suffer physical harm; if innocent, she would be unharmed. 18 The priest shall stand the woman before our Father, unbind her hair, and put in her hands the grain offering of remembrance—the jealousy offering—while he holds the bitter, curse-bringing water. 19 The priest shall put her under oath and say to her: 'If no man has slept with you, and you have not gone astray and made yourself unclean under your husband's authority, be free from this bitter water that brings the curse.' 20 But if you strayed under your husband, made yourself unclean, and a man besides your husband slept with you 21 Then the priest shall bind the woman by this curse-oath, saying: May the Father turn you into a curse and a disgrace among your people, as he makes your thigh shrivel and your belly swell. 22 May this curse-bringing water enter your body, swelling your belly and wasting your thigh. Then the woman must say, "Amen, amen."
23 Then the priest writes these curses on a scroll and washes them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter, cursing water; the cursing water will enter her, causing bitter suffering. 25 The priest takes the jealousy grain offering from her hand, waves it before our Father, and brings it to the altar. 26 The priest takes a handful of the grain offering, its memorial portion, burns it on the altar, then makes the woman drink the water. 27 After he makes her drink the water, if she has made herself unclean and betrayed her husband, the curse-bringing water will enter her, causing bitter suffering: her belly will swell, her thigh wither, and she will become a curse among her people. 28 But if the woman has not made herself unclean and is clean, she is cleared and will conceive children.
29 This is the law of jealousy: when a wife under her husband strays and makes herself unclean, 30 Or when a spirit of jealousy seizes a man and he is jealous of his wife: he shall stand her before our Father, and the priest shall apply this whole law to her. 31 The husband will be free from guilt, but the woman will answer for her own sin.
