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The Lord gave Moses and Aaron
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the following regulations about houses affected by spreading mildew. (These were to apply after the people of Israel entered the land of Canaan, which the Lord was going to give them as their possession.) If any of you find that the Lord has sent mildew on your house, then you must go and tell the priest about it.
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The priest shall order everything to be moved out of the house before he goes to examine the mildew; otherwise everything in the house will be declared unclean. Then he shall go to the house
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and examine the mildew. If there are greenish or reddish spots that appear to be eating into the wall,
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he shall leave the house and lock it up for seven days.
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On the seventh day he shall return and examine it again. If the mildew has spread,
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he shall order that the stones on which the mildew is found be removed and thrown into some unclean place outside the city.
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After that he must have all the interior walls scraped and the plaster dumped in an unclean place outside the city.
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Then other stones are to be used to replace the stones that were removed, and new plaster will be used to cover the walls.
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If the mildew breaks out again in the house after the stones have been removed and the house has been scraped and plastered,
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the priest shall go and look. If it has spread, the house is unclean.
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It must be torn down, and its stones, its wood, and all its plaster must be carried out of the city to an unclean place.
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Any who enter the house while it is locked up will be unclean until evening.
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Any who lie down or eat in the house must wash their clothes.
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If, when the priest comes to look, the mildew has not reappeared after the house has been replastered, he shall pronounce the house ritually clean, because the mildew has been completely removed.
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To purify the house, he shall take two birds, some cedar wood, a red cord, and a sprig of hyssop.
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He shall kill one of the birds over a clay bowl containing fresh spring water.
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Then he shall take the cedar wood, the hyssop, the red cord, and the live bird and shall dip them in the blood of the bird that was killed and in the fresh water. And he shall sprinkle the house seven times.
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In this way he shall purify the house with the bird's blood, the fresh water, the live bird, the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the red cord.
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Then he shall let the live bird fly away outside the city over the open fields. In this way he shall perform the ritual of purification for the house, and it will be ritually clean.
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These are the laws about dreaded skin diseases;
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sores, boils, or inflammations; and about mildew in clothes or houses.
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These laws determine when something is unclean and when it is clean.