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Numbers 5

1Yahweh spoke to Moses:

2“Command the sons of Israel to send out of the camp everyone with a defiling skin condition, everyone with a discharge, and everyone unclean because of a dead person.

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

4The sons of Israel did so and sent them outside the camp. As Yahweh had spoken to Moses, so the sons of Israel did.

5Yahweh spoke to Moses:

6“Speak to the sons of Israel: When a man or woman commits any of the sins people commit, acting unfaithfully toward Yahweh, and that person becomes guilty,

7they must confess the sin they have committed. The guilty person must repay the full amount, add a fifth to it, and give it to the one wronged.

8But if the person has no redeeming relative to receive the repayment, the repayment belongs to Yahweh, for the priest, besides the ram of atonement with which atonement is made for the guilty person.

9Every contribution from all the holy gifts of the sons of Israel that they present to the priest shall be his.

10Each person’s holy gifts shall be his; whatever anyone gives to the priest shall belong to the priest.”

11Yahweh spoke to Moses:

12“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: If any man’s wife goes astray and acts unfaithfully toward him,

13and another man lies with her, depositing semen, but it is hidden from her husband’s eyes and remains concealed, though she has become defiled, with no witness against her and without her being caught,

14and a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he becomes jealous of his wife when she has become defiled—or a spirit of jealousy comes over him and he becomes jealous of his wife when she has not become defiled—

15the man is to bring his wife to the priest. He is to bring her offering 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 wrongdoing to remembrance.

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

17The priest is to take holy water in a clay vessel, take some dust from the floor of the dwelling, and put it in the water.

18The priest is to have the woman stand before Yahweh, loosen the woman’s hair, and put the grain offering of remembrance into her hands—it is a grain offering of jealousy. The priest is to hold the bitter water that brings a curse.

19The priest is to put her under oath and say to the woman, ‘If no other man has lain with you, and you have not gone astray into defilement while married to your husband, be free from this bitter water that brings a curse.

20But if you have gone astray while married to your husband, if you have become defiled and a man other than your husband has deposited his semen in you—’

21then the priest is to put the woman under the oath of the curse and say to her, ‘May Yahweh make you an example in curses and oaths among your people, when Yahweh makes your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell.

22May this water that brings a curse enter your insides to make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.’ The woman is to say, ‘Amen, amen.’

23“The 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. The water that brings a curse will enter her for bitterness.

25The priest is to take the grain offering of jealousy from the woman’s hands, 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 as an offering on the altar. Afterward he is to make the woman drink the water.

27When he has made her drink the water, if she has become defiled and acted unfaithfully toward her husband, the water that brings a curse will enter her for bitterness. Her abdomen will swell, her thigh will waste away, and the woman will become an example in curses among her people.

28But if the woman has not become defiled and is clean, she will be free and will conceive offspring.

29“This is the instruction concerning jealousy: when a wife goes astray while married to her husband and becomes defiled,

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

31The man will be free from wrongdoing, but that woman will bear her wrongdoing.”

Translation notes 5

5:2–3 — Uncleanness. These are ritual conditions governing camp access. The skin condition is not a diagnosis of modern Hansen’s disease; uncleanness from a dead person concerns corpse contact. Both men and women are included.

5:6–10 — Repayment and holy gifts. The restitution adds one fifth to the principal. A redeeming relative is a kinsperson entitled to receive what is owed when the injured person cannot receive it. Verse 10’s pronouns are compressed: the second clause explicitly assigns a gift to its priestly recipient.

5:12–31 — Jealousy and the ordeal. This law addresses a husband’s suspicion where no witness or discovery establishes adultery. It includes both actual defilement and an innocent wife. The unequal roles of husband and wife, the oath, and the threatened bodily consequences are retained.

5:21–28 — Bodily language. The Hebrew says the “thigh” falls and the abdomen swells; thigh can be a euphemism for the reproductive region. Interpretations include wasting reproductive organs, infertility, and miscarriage. The text does not explicitly say that the woman is pregnant. “Thigh waste away” preserves the bodily expression without specifying one disputed medical outcome. The innocent woman is promised conception.

5:24–26 — Repeated drinking instructions. Verse 24 anticipates drinking the water, and verse 26 places it after the memorial offering. Both instructions remain in the sequence of the Hebrew; neither is omitted as redundant.