The Lord said to him, "Take for me a heifer, a goat, and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

"This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord has commanded: 'Instruct the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without blemish, which has no defect and has never carried a yoke.

Then the heifer must be burned in his sight -- its skin, its flesh, its blood, and its offal is to be burned.

And the priest must take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet wool and throw them into the midst of the fire where the heifer is burning.

"'Then a man who is ceremonially clean must gather up the ashes of the red heifer and put them in a ceremonially clean place outside the camp. They must be kept for the community of the Israelites for use in the water of purification -- it is a purification for sin.

The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes and be ceremonially unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the resident foreigner who lives among them.

"'For a ceremonially unclean person you must take some of the ashes of the heifer burnt for purification from sin and pour fresh running water over them in a vessel.

Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked -- that has never pulled with the yoke --

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water, to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer's neck.

and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley.

On the seventh day, before the sun set, the men of the city said to him, "What is sweeter than honey? What is stronger than a lion?" He said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have solved my riddle!"

Samuel replied, "How can I go? Saul will hear about it and kill me!" But the Lord said, "Take a heifer with you and say, 'I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.'

Israel has rebelled like a stubborn heifer! Soon the Lord will put them out to pasture like a lamb in a broad field!

Ephraim was a well-trained heifer who loved to thresh grain; I myself put a fine yokeon her neck. I will harness Ephraim. Let Judah plow! Let Jacob break up the unplowed ground for himself!