And he said to him, "Take for me a three-year-old heifer, and a three-year-old female goat, and a three-year-old ram, and a turtledove and a young pigeon."

"This [is] the decree of the law that Yahweh has commanded, saying, 'Speak to the {Israelites} and let them take to you a red heifer without a physical defect, on which a yoke {has not been placed}.

The heifer will be burned in his sight; its skin, its meat, and its blood, in addition to its offal, will burn.

The priest will take cedar wood, hyssop, and crimson thread, and he will throw them in the midst of {the burning heifer}.

A clean man will gather the ashes of the heifer, and he will put [them] in a clean {place outside the camp}; it will be for the community of the {Israelites} as a requirement for waters of impurity; it [is] a purification [offering].

The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer will wash his garments; he will be unclean until evening. It will be an eternal decree for the {Israelites} and for one who dwells as an alien in their midst.

{And then} the nearest city to the slain one, the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd that has not been worked with [in the field], that has not pulled a yoke,

and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a {wadi that flows with water all year} and [that] has not been plowed and has not been sown; [then] {there they shall break the neck of the heifer in the wadi}.

And all of the elders of that city nearest to the slain person shall wash their hands over the heifer [with] the broken neck in the wadi.

The men of the city said to him on the seventh day before the sun went [down], "What [is] sweeter than honey? What [is] stronger than a lion?" And he said to them, "If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have found out my riddle."

But Samuel said, "How can I go? If Saul hears, he will kill me." Yahweh said, "You must take a heifer from the herd {with you}, and you must say, 'I have come to sacrifice to Yahweh.'

Egypt [is] a beautiful heifer, [but] a gadfly from [the] north [will] come against her.

"Though you rejoice, though you exult, O plunderers of my inheritance, though you frisk about like a heifer on the grass, and you neigh like the powerful stallions,

Indeed, like a stubborn heifer, Israel is stubborn; Now Yahweh will feed them, like a lamb in broad pasture.

Ephraim [was] a trained heifer, that loved to thresh [grain], and I myself {spared} the fairness of her neck; I will make Ephraim break the ground, Judah will plow, Jacob must till for himself.