Leviticus 15.1-33

Concerning Bodily Discharges: Leviticus 15.1-33


A good rule of thumb for personal discharges is if anything is discharged, blood, semen, or otherwise, you are unclean.

If you are a man with a non-seminal discharge, anything you lie or sit on is unclean. Anyone who touches your bed or body or anywhere you have sat should bathe and wash his clothes, remaining ritually unclean until evening. If you spit on someone or touch him, that person should bathe and wash his clothes, remaining ritually unclean until evening. The one exception is if you wash your hands. In this case you can touch people and things. However, your saddle, bed, etc. will still be considered unclean. If you touch an earthen vessel it should be broken, but a wooden one rinsed with water.

When the discharge has ended, you should wash your body and clothes and count seven days for the cleansing to take effect. On the eighth day you should appear before the entrance of the tent of meeting with two turtledoves or pigeons. The priest should offer one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. Atonement will be made on your behalf and you will be clean.

A woman with a discharge that is not the result of menstruation suffers the same stigma and requires the same purifying ritual.

If a man has an emission of semen, he is to bathe and remain unclean until evening. If it is with his wife they both should bathe. Anything the semen touches should be washed and will remain unclean until evening.

If you are a woman with your period, you will be unclean for seven days, and anyone who touches you will be unclean until  evening. Everything you sit or lie upon is unclean, and anyone who touches something uncelan is to bathe and wash his clothes, remaining unclean until evening. The impurity of menstruation of transferable. If a man has sex with you while you are menstruating, he will be unclean seven days, and he too will contaminate every bed he lies on.