Laws for Cleansing Houses

Leviticus 14

³³ The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: ³⁴ When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a leprous ₁ disease in a house in the land of your possession, ³⁵ the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, "There seems to me to be some sort of disease in my house." ³⁶ The priest shall command that they empty the house before the priest goes to examine the disease, or all that is in the house will become unclean; and afterward the priest shall go in to inspect the house. ³⁷ He shall examine the disease; if the disease is in the walls of the house with greenish or reddish spots, and if it appears to be deeper than the surface, ³⁸ the priest shall go outside to the door of the house and shut up the house seven days. ³⁹ The priest shall come again on the seventh day and make an inspection; if the disease has spread in the walls of the house, ⁴⁰ the priest shall command that the stones in which the disease appears be taken out and thrown into an unclean place outside the city. ⁴¹ He shall have the inside of the house scraped thoroughly, and the plaster that is scraped off shall be dumped in an unclean place outside the city. ⁴² They shall take other stones and put them in the place of those stones, and take other plaster and plaster the house.

⁴³ If the disease breaks out again in the house, after he has taken out the stones and scraped the house and plastered it, ⁴⁴ the priest shall go and make inspection; if the disease has spread in the house, it is a spreading leprous ₂ disease in the house; it is unclean. ⁴⁵ He shall have the house torn down, its stones and timber and all the plaster of the house, and taken outside the city to an unclean place. ⁴⁶ All who enter the house while it is shut up shall be unclean until the evening; ⁴⁷ and all who sleep in the house shall wash their clothes; and all who eat in the house shall wash their clothes.

⁴⁸ If the priest comes and makes an inspection, and the disease has not spread in the house after the house was plastered, the priest shall pronounce the house clean; the disease is healed. ⁴⁹ For the cleansing of the house he shall take two birds, with cedarwood and crimson yarn and hyssop, ⁵⁰ and shall slaughter one of the birds over fresh water in an earthen vessel, ⁵¹ and shall take the cedarwood and the hyssop and the crimson yarn, along with the living bird, and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle the house seven times. ⁵² Thus he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird, and with the fresh water, and with the living bird, and with the cedarwood and hyssop and crimson yarn; ⁵³ and he shall let the living bird go out of the city into the open field; so he shall make atonement for the house, and it shall be clean.

⁵⁴ This is the ritual for any leprous ₃ disease: for an itch, ⁵⁵ for leprous ₄ diseases in clothing and houses, ⁵⁶ and for a swelling or an eruption or a spot, ⁵⁷ to determine when it is unclean and when it is clean. This is the ritual for leprous ₅ diseases.