Parashot Tazria-Metzora, Year 3 Shabbat, May 3, 2025

(33) יהוה spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: (34) When you enter the land of Canaan that I give you as a possession, and I inflict an eruptive plague upon a house in the land you possess, (35) the owner of the house shall come and tell the priest, saying, “Something like a plague has appeared upon my house.” (36) The priest shall order the house cleared before the priest enters to examine the plague, so that nothing in the house may become impure; after that the priest shall enter to examine the house. (37) If, when he examines the plague, the plague in the walls of the house is found to consist of greenish or reddish streaks that appear to go deep into the wall, (38) the priest shall come out of the house to the entrance of the house, and close up the house for seven days. (39) On the seventh day the priest shall return. If he sees that the plague has spread on the walls of the house, (40) the priest shall order the stones with the plague in them to be pulled out and cast outside the city into an impure place. (41) The house shall be scraped inside all around, and the coating that is scraped off shall be dumped outside the city in an impure place. (42) They shall take other stones and replace those stones with them, and take other coating and plaster the house. (43) If the plague again breaks out in the house, after the stones have been pulled out and after the house has been scraped and replastered, (44) the priest shall come to examine: if the plague has spread in the house, it is a malignant eruption in the house; it is impure. (45) The house shall be torn down—its stones and timber and all the coating on the house—and taken to an impure place outside the city. (46) Whoever enters the house while it is closed up shall be impure until evening. (47) Whoever sleeps in the house must wash those clothes, and whoever eats in the house must wash those clothes. (48) If, however, the priest comes and sees that the plague has not spread in the house after the house was replastered, the priest shall pronounce the house pure, for the plague has healed. (49) To purge the house, he shall take two birds, cedar wood, crimson stuff, and hyssop. (50) He shall slaughter the one bird over fresh water in an earthen vessel. (51) He shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the crimson stuff, and the live bird, and dip them in the blood of the slaughtered bird and the fresh water, and sprinkle on the house seven times. (52) Having purged the house with the blood of the bird, the fresh water, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the crimson stuff, (53) he shall set the live bird free outside the city in the open country. Thus he shall make expiation for the house, and it shall be pure. (54) Such is the ritual for every eruptive affection—for scalls, (55) for an eruption on a cloth or a house, (56) for swellings, for rashes, or for discolorations— (57) to determine when they are impure and when they are pure. Such is the ritual concerning eruptions. (1) יהוה spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying: (2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When any man has a discharge issuing from his member, he is impure. (3) The impurity from his discharge shall mean the following—whether his member runs with the discharge or is stopped up so that there is no discharge, his impurity means this: (4) Any bedding on which the one with the discharge lies shall be impure, and every object on which he sits shall be impure. (5) Those persons who touch his bedding shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (6) Those who sit on an object on which the one with the discharge has sat shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (7) Those who touch the body of the one with the discharge shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (8) If the one with a discharge spits on someone who is pure, the latter shall wash those clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (9) Any means for riding that the one with a discharge has mounted shall be impure; (10) all those who touch anything that was under him shall be impure until evening; and all those who carry such things shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (11) All those whom the one with a discharge touches, without having rinsed his hands in water, shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (12) An earthen vessel that the one with a discharge touches shall be broken; and any wooden implement shall be rinsed with water. (13) When the one with a discharge becomes purified of his discharge, he shall count off seven days for his purification, wash those clothes, and bathe his body in fresh water; then he shall be pure. (14) On the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and come before יהוה at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest. (15) The priest shall offer them, the one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. Thus the priest shall make expiation on his behalf, for his discharge, before יהוה. (16) When a man has an emission of semen, he shall bathe his whole body in water and remain impure until evening. (17) All cloth or leather on which semen falls shall be washed in water and remain impure until evening. (18) Likewise for a woman: when a man has carnal relations with her, both shall bathe in water and remain impure until evening. (19) When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being blood from her body, she shall remain in her menstrual separation seven days; whoever touches her shall be impure until evening. (20) Anything that she lies on during her menstrual separation shall be impure; and anything that she sits on shall be impure. (21) All those who touch her bedding shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening; (22) and all those who touch any object on which she has sat shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (23) Be it the bedding or be it the object on which she has sat, on touching it one shall be impure until evening. (24) And if a man lies with her, her menstrual separation applies to him; he shall be impure seven days, and any bedding on which he lies shall become impure. (25) When a woman has had a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her menstrual separation, or when she has a discharge beyond her period of menstrual separation, she shall be impure, as though at the time of her menstrual separation, as long as her discharge lasts. (26) Any bedding on which she lies while her discharge lasts shall be for her like bedding during her menstrual separation; and any object on which she sits shall become impure, as it does during her menstrual separation: (27) All those who touch them shall be impure—and shall wash their clothes, bathe in water, and remain impure until evening. (28) When she becomes purified of her discharge, she shall count off seven days, and after that she shall be pure. (29) On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. (30) The priest shall offer the one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering; and the priest shall make expiation on her behalf, for her impure discharge, before יהוה. (31) You shall put the Israelites on guard against their impurity, lest they die through their impurity by defiling My Tabernacle which is among them. (32) Such is the ritual concerning one who has a discharge: concerning him who has an emission of semen and becomes impure thereby; (33) and concerning her whose condition is that of menstrual separation; and concerning anyone, male or female, who has a discharge; and concerning a man who lies with an impure woman.

(3) There were four men, lepers, outside the gate. They said to one another, “Why should we sit here waiting for death? (4) If we decide to go into the town, what with the famine in the town, we shall die there; and if we just sit here, still we die. Come, let us desert to the Aramean camp. If they let us live, we shall live; and if they put us to death, we shall but die.” (5) They set out at twilight for the Aramean camp; but when they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, there was no one there. (6) For [God] had caused the Aramean camp to hear a sound of chariots, a sound of horses—the din of a huge army. They said to one another, “The king of Israel must have hired the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Mizraim to attack us!” (7) And they fled headlong in the twilight, abandoning their tents and horses and donkeys—the [entire] camp just as it was—as they fled for their lives. (8) When those lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into one of the tents and ate and drank; then they carried off silver and gold and clothing from there and buried it. They came back and went into another tent, and they carried off what was there and buried it. (9) Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This is a day of good news, and we are keeping silent! If we wait until the light of morning, we shall incur guilt. Come, let us go and inform the king’s palace.” (10) They went and called out to the gatekeepers of the city and told them, “We have been to the Aramean camp. There is not a soul there, nor any human sound; but the horses are tethered and the donkeys are tethered and the tents are undisturbed.” (11) The gatekeepers called out, and the news was passed on into the king’s palace. (12) The king rose in the night and said to his courtiers, “I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know that we are starving, so they have gone out of camp and hidden in the fields, thinking: When they come out of the town, we will take them alive and get into the town.” (13) But one of the courtiers spoke up, “Let a few of the remaining horses that are still here be taken—they are like those that are left here of the whole multitude of Israel, out of the whole multitude of Israel that have perished—and let us send and find out.” (14) They took two teams of horses and the king sent them after the Aramean army, saying, “Go and find out.” (15) They followed them as far as the Jordan, and found the entire road full of clothing and gear that the Arameans had thrown away in their haste; and the messengers returned and told the king. (16) The people then went out and plundered the Aramean camp. So a seah of choice flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley for a shekel—as GOD had spoken. (17) Now the king had put the aide on whose arm he leaned in charge of the gate; and he was trampled to death in the gate by the people—just as the agent of God had spoken, as he had spoken when the king came down to him. (18) For when the agent of God said to the king, “This time tomorrow two seahs of barley shall sell at the gate of Samaria for a shekel, and a seah of choice flour for a shekel,” (19) the aide answered the agent of God and said, “Even if GOD made windows in the sky, could this come to pass?” And he retorted, “You shall see it with your own eyes, but you shall not eat of it.” (20) That is exactly what happened to him: The people trampled him to death in the gate.