Metzora

The portion opens with the ritual for the healed metzora, the day of cleansing. The priest goes outside the camp, and when the mark has healed, two live clean birds are brought with cedar wood, scarlet yarn, and hyssop: one bird is slain over fresh water, the living one is dipped with the cedar, scarlet, and hyssop in its blood and set free over the open field, and the person is sprinkled seven times. After washing, shaving, and seven days outside their tent, the eighth day brings offerings — and blood of the guilt offering, then oil, placed on the right ear, thumb, and big toe, with the remaining oil on the head. A poorer person brings a scaled-down offering of birds.

Tzaraat can also appear in a house in the land of Canaan — "when I put a mark of tzaraat in a house of the land of your possession." The house is emptied, examined, and shut up seven days; spreading greenish or reddish streaks mean stones pulled out and thrown outside the city, walls scraped, new stones and plaster set in. If the mark returns, the house is torn down entirely; if it heals, it is cleansed with the same two-birds ritual as a person.

The final chapter turns to bodily discharges. A man with an abnormal discharge renders bedding, seats, saddles, vessels, and people unclean by contact, and on healing counts seven days and brings two birds; an emission of seed brings uncleanness until evening. A menstruating woman is unclean seven days, and whoever touches her bedding or seat is unclean until evening; a discharge beyond her time follows the rules of the man's, with offerings on the eighth day. The section closes with its purpose: to separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, so that they do not defile the dwelling in their midst.