Add parallel Print Page Options

18-22 Next, he will remove her veil, then hand her the barley offering, and say, “If you have been faithful to your husband, this water won't harm you. But if you have been unfaithful, it will bring down the Lord's curse—you will never be able to give birth to a child, and everyone will curse your name.”

Then the woman will answer, “If I am guilty, let it happen just as you say.”

23 The priest will write these curses on special paper and wash them off into the bitter water,

Read full chapter

21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse(A)—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[a] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water(B) that brings a curse(C) enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.(D)

23 “‘The priest is to write these curses on a scroll(E) and then wash them off into the bitter water.

Read full chapter

Footnotes

  1. Numbers 5:21 That is, may he cause your name to be used in cursing (see Jer. 29:22); or, may others see that you are cursed; similarly in verse 27.

21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;

22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.

23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:

Read full chapter