Parashat Nasso
Numbers 5:11 – 31
“Any man whose wife shall go astray and commit treachery against him; and a man could have lain with her carnally, but it was hidden from the eyes of her husband, and she became secluded and could have been defiled — but there was no witness against her — and she had not been forced; and a spirit of jealousy had passed over him and he had warned his wife and she had not become defiled. The man shall bring his wife to the Kohen and he shall bring her offering for her, a tenth-ephah of barley flour; he shall not pour oil over it and shall not put frankincense upon it, for it is a meal-offering of jealousies, a meal-offering of remembrance, a reminder of iniquity.
The Kohen shall ring her near and have her stand before YHVH. The Kohen shall take sacred water in an earthenware vessel, and the Kohen shall take from the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle and put it in the water. The Kohen shall have the woman stand before YHVH and uncover the woman’s head, and upon her palms he shall put the meal-offering of remembrance — it is a meal-offering of jealousies, and in the hand of the Kohen shall be the bitter waters that cause curse.
The Kohen shall adjure her and said to the woman, ‘If a man has not lain with you, and you have not strayed in defilement with someone other than your husband, then be proven innocent of these bitter waters that cause curse. But if you have strayed with someone other than your husband, and if you have become defiled, and a man other than your husband has lain with you –!’
The Kohen shall adjure the woman with the oath of the curse, and the Kohen shall say to the woman, ‘May YHVH render you as a curse and as an oath amid your people, when YHVH causes your thigh to collapse and your stomach to distend. These waters that cause curse shall enter your innards to cause stomach to distend and thigh to collapse!’ And the woman shall respond, ‘Amen, Amen’
The Kohen shall inscribe these curses on a scroll and erase it into the bitter waters. When he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter waters that cause curse, then the waters that cause curse shall come into her for bitterness.
The Kohen shall take the meal-offering before YHVH, and he shall offer it on the Altar. The Kohen shall scoop up from the meal-offering its remembrance and cause it to go up in smoke on the Altar; after which he shall cause the woman to drink the water. He shall cause her to drink the water, and it shall be that if she had become defiled and had committed treachery against her husband, the waters that cause curse shall come into her for bitterness, and her stomach shall be distended and her thigh shall collapse, and the woman shall become a curse amid her people. But if the woman had not become defiled, and she is pure, then she shall be proven innocent and she shall bear seed.
This is the law of jealousies, when a woman shall go astray with someone other than her husband and become defiled; or of a man over whom passes a spirit of jealousy and he warns his wife, and he causes his wife to stand before YHVH, then the Kohen shall carry out for her this entire law. The man will be innocent of iniquity, but the woman shall bear her iniquity.”