The unclean are removed out of the camp: confession of sins, and
satisfaction: firstfruits and oblations belonging to the priests: trial
of jealousy.
5:1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
5:2. Command the children of Israel, that they cast out of the camp
every leper, and whosoever hath an issue of seed, or is defiled by the
dead:
5:3. Whether it be man or woman, cast ye them out of the camp, lest
they defile it when I shall dwell with you,
5:4. And the children of Israel did so, and they cast them forth
without the camp, as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
5:5. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
5:6. Say to the children of Israel: When a man or woman shall have
committed any of all the sins that men are wont to commit, and by
negligence shall have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and
offended,
5:7. They shall confess their sin, and restore the principal itself,
and the fifth part over and above, to him against whom they have
sinned.
Shall confess.... This confession and satisfaction, ordained in the Old
Law, was a figure of the sacrament of penance.
5:8. But if there be no one to receive it, they shall give it to the
Lord, and it shall be the priest’s, besides the ram that is offered for
expiation, to be an atoning sacrifice.
5:9. All the firstfruits also, which the children of Israel offer,
belong to the priest:
5:10. And whatsoever is offered into the sanctuary by every one, and is
delivered into the hands of the priest, it shall be his.
5:11. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:
5:12. Speak to the children of Israel, and thou shalt say to them: The
man whose wife shall have gone astray, and contemning her husband,
5:13. Shall have slept with another man, and her husband cannot
discover it, but the adultery is secret, and cannot be proved by
witnesses, because she was not found in the adultery:
5:14. If the spirit of jealousy stir up the husband against his wife,
who either is defiled, or is charged with false suspicion,
The spirit of jealousy, etc.... This ordinance was designed to clear
the innocent, and to prevent jealous husbands from doing mischief to
their wives: as likewise to give all a horror of adultery, by punishing
it in so remarkable a manner.
5:15. He shall bring her to the priest, and shall offer an oblation for
her, the tenth part of a measure of barley meal: he shall not pour oil
thereon, nor put frankincense upon it: because it is a sacrifice of
jealousy, and an oblation searching out adultery.
5:16. The priest therefore shall offer it, and set it before the Lord.
5:17. And he shall take holy water in an earthen vessel, and he shall
cast a little earth of the pavement of the tabernacle into it.
5:18. And when the woman shall stand before the Lord, he shall uncover
her head, and shall put on her hands the sacrifice of remembrance, and
the oblation of jealousy: and he himself shall hold the most bitter
waters, whereon he hath heaped curses with execration.
5:19. And he shall adjure her, and shall say: If another man hath not
slept with thee, and if thou be not defiled by forsaking thy husband’s
bed, these most bitter waters, on which I have heaped curses, shall not
hurt thee.
5:20. But if thou hast gone aside from thy husband, and art defiled,
and hast lain with another man:
5:21. These curses shall light upon thee: The Lord make thee a curse,
and an example for all among his people: may he make thy thigh to rot,
and may thy belly swell and burst asunder.
5:22. Let the cursed waters enter into thy belly, and may thy womb
swell and thy thigh rot. And the woman shall answer, Amen, amen.
5:23. And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and shall wash
them out with the most bitter waters, upon which he hath heaped the
curses,
5:24. And he shall give them her to drink. And when she hath drunk them
up,
5:25. The priest shall take from her hand the sacrifice of jealousy,
and shall elevate it before the Lord, and shall put it upon the altar:
yet so as first,
5:26. To take a handful of the sacrifice of that which is offered, and
burn it upon the altar: and so give the most bitter waters to the woman
to drink.
5:27. And when she hath drunk them, if she be defiled, and having
despised her husband be guilty of adultery, the malediction shall go
through her, and her belly swelling, her thigh shall rot: and the woman
shall be a curse, and an example to all the people.
5:28. But if she be not defiled, she shall not be hurt, and shall bear
children.
5:29. This is the law of jealousy. If a woman hath gone aside from her
husband, and be defiled,
5:30. And the husband stirred up by the spirit of jealousy bring her
before the Lord, and the priest do to her according to all things that
are here written:
5:31. The husband shall be blameless, and she shall bear her iniquity.