"This is the ordinance of the law that the LORD commanded that the Israelis be told: They are to bring you a spotless red heifer, without physical defect, that has never been fitted with a yoke.

The entire heifer is to be incinerated in his presence, including its skin, its flesh, its blood, and its dung.

Then the priest is to take some cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet material and throw it into the middle of the burning heifer.

Then someone who is unclean is to gather the ashes of the heifer and lay them outside the camp in a clean place. This is to be done for the community of Israel to use for water of purification from sin.

Whoever gathers the ashes of the heifer is to wash his clothes and is to remain unclean until the evening. This ordinance is to remain for the benefit of both the Israelis and the resident aliens who live among them."

Then the elders of the city nearest the body are to take a heifer that hasn't been put to work or hasn't pulled a yoke

and are to lead the heifer to a flowing stream in a valley that has never been tilled or planted. They are to break the heifer's neck there.

All the elders of the city nearest the dead body are to wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley,

Then the men of the city answered him just before sunset on the seventh day: "What is sweeter than honey? What are stronger than lions?" Samson responded, "If you hadn't plowed with my heifer, you wouldn't have solved my riddle."

The LORD said, "Take a heifer with you and say, "I've come to offer a sacrifice to the LORD.' You are to invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I'll show you what you are to do. You are to anoint for me the one I tell you."

"At that time, a man will keep alive a heifer and two sheep,

"Though you rejoice, though you exult, you plunderers of my inheritance, though you skip around like a heifer in the grass and neigh like stallions,

"Ephraim, the well-trained heifer, loves to thresh grain, so I will spare her neck. I will turn Ephraim into a pack animal. Judah will pull the plow, and Jacob will turn up the fallow ground.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are unclean purifies them physically,