Sexual impurities
1 ① Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron; he said,
2“Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them:
3When a man has a discharge from his body, that discharge makes him unclean. The rules about his uncleanness are:
Whether his body allows the discharge to flow or whether it retains it, he is unclean. 4Any bed the man lies on and any seat he sits on shall be unclean. 5Any one who touches his bed must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening.
6Anyone who sits on a seat where the man has sat must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening. 7Anyone who touches the body of a man so affected must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening. 8If the sick man spits on someone who is clean, that person must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening.
9Any saddle the sick man travels on will be unclean. 10All those who touch any object that may be under him will be unclean until evening. Anyone who picks up such an object must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening.
11All those whom the sick man touches without washing his hands must wash their clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening. 12Any clay pot the sick man touches must be broken and any wooden utensil must be rinsed.
13When the man suffering from a discharge is cured, he must allow seven days for his purification. He must wash his clothing and take a bath in running water and he will be clean. 14On the eighth day he must take two turtledoves or two young pigeons and come before Yahweh at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, and give them to the priest. 15The priest is to offer a sacrifice for sin with one of them, and with the other a burnt offering. So the priest will perform the rite of atonement before Yahweh for the man’s discharge.
16When a man has a seminal discharge, he must bathe his whole body with water and he shall be unclean until evening. 17Any clothing or leather touched by a seminal discharge must be washed and it will be unclean until evening. 18When a woman has slept with a man, both of them must take a bath and they will be unclean until evening.
19When a woman has a discharge of blood, and blood flows from her body, this uncleanness of her monthly periods shall last for seven days. Anyone who touches her will be unclean until evening. 20Any bed she lies on will be unclean; any seat she sits on will be unclean.
21Anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening. 22Anyone who touches any seat she has sat on must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening. 23If there is anything on the bed or the chair on which she sat, anyone who touches it will be unclean until evening.
24If a man sleeps with a woman who is unclean because of her monthly period, he shall be unclean for seven days. Any bed he lies on will be unclean.
25If a woman has a flow of blood for several days outside her period, or if her period is prolonged, during the time this flow lasts she shall be unclean as during her monthly periods. 26Any bed she lies on during the time this flow lasts will be unclean as during her monthly period. Any seat she sits on will be unclean; as it would be during her monthly periods. 27Anyone who touches them will be unclean; he must wash his clothing and take a bath and will be unclean until evening.
28When she is cured of her flow, she will let seven days pass; then she will be clean. 29On the eighth day she is to take two turtledoves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 30With one of them the priest is to offer a sacrifice for sin and with the other a burnt offering. This is the way in which the priest will perform the rite of atonement over her before Yahweh for the flow that made her unclean.
31Make the sons of Israel aware of everything unclean, lest they die because of defiling the Tent of my presence among them.
32Such is the law concerning a man with a discharge, anyone made unclean by a seminal discharge, 33a woman unclean because of her monthly periods, a man or a woman with discharge, a man who sleeps with an unclean woman.”
- Lev 15,1 Among all primitive people we find a sacredness surrounding everything related to sex and birth. That is the origin, somehow, of these prescriptions about sexual purity and impurity. It would be wrong to interpret them as if sexual relations were impure in themselves; they are only so when the demands of genuine love are not respected. The Canaanites, among whom the Israelites settled, yielded to the forces of nature which they thought to be divine, and sexual orgies accompanied all their religious feasts. For the Israelites, however, the many purifications concerning sexual life reminded them that sex was part of human nature as God created it and that its drives had to be subject to the Law of God. The baptized person is guided by other considerations: 1 Cor 6 and 7. {N}16,{/}1. The ceremony for the feast of Atonement was very expressive: one of two he-goats was set aside to carry the punishment for sin and therefore had to die; the other was sent off toward Azazel. Symbolically the he-goat bore the sins of the people. The Letter to the Hebrews, chapters 9 and 10, recalls these Jewish rituals when it mentions the forgiveness of sins that Christ won through his death and resurrection. In 16:29-34 it is again said that these commands will be the everlasting law: how do we explain that the church canceled them when Christ came? Paul explains this in Galatians 3-5.
