Chapter 5
1 The Lord told Moses
2 The Israelites obeyed the Lord 's instructions.
3 The Lord told Moses
4 to say to the community of Israel: If any of you commit a crime against someone, you have sinned against me.
5 You must confess your guilt and pay the victim in full for whatever damage has been done, plus a fine of 20 percent.
6 If the victim has no relative who can accept this money, it belongs to me and will be paid to the priest. In addition to that payment, you must take a ram for the priest to sacrifice so your sin will be forgiven.
7 The Lord told Moses
8 Suppose a man becomes jealous and suspects that his wife has been unfaithful, but he has no proof.
9 He must take his wife to the priest, together with one kilogram of ground barley as an offering to find out if she is guilty. No olive oil or incense is to be put on that offering.
10 The priest will lead the woman to my altar and make her stand there.
11 He will then pour sacred water into a clay jar and stir in some dust from the floor of the sacred tent.
12 Then the woman will answer, "If I am guilty, let it happen just as you say."
13 The priest will write these curses on special paper and wash them off into the bitter water,
14 so that when the woman drinks this water, the curses will enter her body.
15 He will take the barley offering from her and lift it up in dedication to me, the Lord . Then he will place it on my altar
16 and burn part of it as a sacrifice. After that, the woman must drink the bitter water.
17 If the woman has been unfaithful, the water will immediately make her unable to have children, and she will be a curse among her people.
18 But if she is innocent, her body will not be harmed, and she will still be able to have children.
19 If the husband is wrong, he will not be punished; but if his wife is guilty, she will be punished.