“He shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague.” That is Leviticus 13:13, ruling on a man the disease has covered from his head to his foot, and the chapter never says why. This Leviticus 13 summary and study guide follows Israel’s priests through every case they had to decide.
Table of Contents
- Setting the Stage
- Comprehensive Leviticus 13 Summary
- Leviticus 13 Outline
- The Nine Cases the Priest Had to Decide
- Observations from Leviticus 13
- Difficult Verses Explained
- Common Misunderstandings
- Christ Connection
- When, Where, and Why
- Key Verses
- Key Lessons from Leviticus 13
- Bible Study Questions
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Leviticus 13, The Full Text (KJV)
Setting the Stage
God had the people of Israel build Him a tent at Mount Sinai, and when it was finished His glory filled it so completely that Moses could not go inside (Exodus 40:34-35). God was now living in the middle of the camp.
Everything in Leviticus from that point answers one question: how do ordinary people live next door to a holy God? Chapters 1 to 7 gave the offerings. Chapters 8 to 10 put priests in place to handle them. Chapter 11 began the rulings on clean and unclean with food, and chapter 12 turned to childbirth.
Leviticus 13 brings the same question to the human body and to the clothes on it. For the wider setting, see our Book of Leviticus Summary by Chapter.
Comprehensive Leviticus 13 Summary
God speaks to Moses and to Aaron, which He did not do in the chapter before. A man notices a swelling, a scab or a bright spot on his skin, and he is brought to a priest.
The priest looks for three things. Has the hair in the spot turned white? Does the spot sit deeper than the surrounding skin? Is it spreading? Where the first two are present the man is unclean at once.
Where they are absent, the priest shuts him away for seven days, looks again, shuts him away seven days more, and rules only then. If the mark has faded and stayed put, it was only a scab and he goes home.
From there the chapter works outward. It takes the marks that arise on their own, then the ones that rise where a boil or a burn has healed, then a sore buried in the hair of the head or the beard. Where an injury already explains the mark, the priest waits one week instead of two.
Where the disease has covered the man from head to foot and turned every part of him white, the verdict flips and he is clean, until raw flesh shows anywhere on him. Pale white patches and a bald head are each ruled on and let go.
Where the disease is confirmed, the man tears his clothes, uncovers his head, covers his upper lip, calls out “Unclean, unclean,” and lives outside the camp for as long as it lasts. The same procedure is then applied to a garment: shown to the priest, shut up seven days, washed, watched, and burned if the mark will not go.
One Word Summary
- Diagnosis: the priest’s entire job here is to identify, never to treat.
- Verdict: the chapter is a run of rulings, clean or unclean, and nothing else.
- Patience: eight separate waiting periods before a doubtful case is settled.
In One Sentence
God gives Moses and Aaron a procedure for the priests, who examine a swelling, a boil, a burn, a scalp sore or a marked garment, wait a week and often a second, then pronounce it clean or unclean, and send the confirmed sufferer to live outside the camp.
Theme of Leviticus 13
Leviticus 13 is about who may come near the tent where God lives, and how Israel was to tell what truly defiles from what merely looks alarming. Three ideas run alongside that one. The law is slow, spending two full weeks on a doubtful case. It stops short, naming the problem and handing the man nothing that would make him well. And it reaches past the body to the wool and leather in the camp.
Leviticus 13 Outline
- Leviticus 13:1: God speaks to Moses and Aaron together.
- Leviticus 13:2-8: A swelling, scab or bright spot with no known cause is examined, and after two seven-day waits the priest rules it a harmless scab or a leprosy.
- Leviticus 13:9-11: A white rising with white hair and raw flesh in it is an old leprosy, and the priest rules at once without shutting the man up.
- Leviticus 13:12-17: Disease covering the body from head to foot is pronounced clean, and raw flesh appearing on him reverses that verdict until that raw flesh turns white again.
- Leviticus 13:18-23: A mark rising where a boil has healed is examined, with one seven-day wait.
- Leviticus 13:24-28: A mark rising in the scar of a burn is examined the same way.
- Leviticus 13:29-37: A sore on the head or the beard of a man or a woman is judged by yellow hair, with shaving and two seven-day waits before the priest rules.
- Leviticus 13:38-39: Pale white patches are a harmless freckled spot, and the person is clean.
- Leviticus 13:40-44: Baldness at the back or the front of the head is clean, but a reddish white sore rising on the bald skin is not.
- Leviticus 13:45-46: The confirmed sufferer wears mourning dress, calls out “Unclean, unclean,” and lives outside the camp.
- Leviticus 13:47-52: A greenish or reddish mark in wool, linen or leather is shown to the priest, shut up seven days, and burned if it has spread.
- Leviticus 13:53-55: A mark that has not spread is washed and shut up seven days more, and burned if its colour has not changed.
- Leviticus 13:56-58: A faded mark is torn out of the cloth, the cloth is burned if the mark returns, and a washed garment the mark has left is clean.
- Leviticus 13:59: The law closes by naming its own purpose, to pronounce a garment clean or unclean.
The Nine Cases the Priest Had to Decide
Leviticus 13 is written as a decision procedure. Each case gives the priest something to look at, something to look for, and a verdict to hand down.
| Case | Passage | What brings it to the priest | Deciding signs | Waiting period | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. A rising, scab or bright spot | 13:2-8 | A mark on the skin with no known cause | White hair in it; deeper than the skin; spreading | Seven days, then seven more | Clean if it fades and stays put, unclean if it spreads |
| 2. The swollen sore | 13:9-11 | A white rising already visible | White hair, and raw flesh in the rising | None | Unclean at once |
| 3. Disease covering the whole body | 13:12-17 | The disease has spread everywhere | All the skin turned white; any raw flesh | None | Clean while all white, unclean the moment raw flesh shows |
| 4. A mark in a healed boil | 13:18-23 | A boil that healed, then a mark rose in it | White hair; lower than the skin; spreading | Seven days | Clean if it holds still, unclean if it spreads |
| 5. A mark in the scar of a burn | 13:24-28 | A burn that healed, then a mark rose in it | White hair; deeper than the skin; spreading | Seven days | Clean if it holds still, unclean if it spreads |
| 6. The scall on head or beard | 13:29-37 | A sore in the hair of a man or a woman | Thin yellow hair; deeper than the skin; spreading; black hair growing back | Seven days, shaving, then seven more | Clean if it holds still or grows black hair, unclean if it spreads |
| 7. Pale white patches | 13:38-39 | White marks on the skin of a man or a woman | Dull rather than bright white | None | Clean |
| 8. Baldness | 13:40-44 | Hair lost from the back or front of the head | Bare skin alone, or a reddish white sore rising on it | None | Clean, unless a sore rises on the bald skin |
| 9. The garment | 13:47-59 | A mark in wool, linen or leather | Greenish or reddish colour; spreading; colour unchanged after washing | Seven days, washing, then seven more | Clean after a second washing, burned if the mark stays or returns |
Observations from Leviticus 13
Three Signs Run the Whole Chapter
Every ruling in Leviticus 13 turns on the colour of the hair, the depth of the mark, or whether it is spreading. Verse 3 sets the pattern for the body: “when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy.” White hair growing out of a mark that sits below the surrounding skin means the disease is real.
The signs shift with the part of the body. On the head and in the beard the warning colour is yellow rather than white (Leviticus 13:30), and black hair growing back in the sore is the sign that it has healed (Leviticus 13:37). Spreading decides a case on its own; where the sore has spread after a man was cleared, the priest is told he need not even look for yellow hair (Leviticus 13:36).
A priest was not guessing. God gave him a small set of things he could see.
The Priest’s Answer to a Doubtful Case Was a Week
“Then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days” (Leviticus 13:4). Where the signs were unclear, the priest did not rule; he set the man apart and looked again a week later.
The phrase “seven days” appears in eight verses of the chapter, and in the two hardest cases the wait runs twice over before any verdict is given (Leviticus 13:4-6; 13:31-34). Only where the disease was already unmistakable did God tell the priest to skip the wait entirely and rule on the spot (Leviticus 13:11).
That fortnight guarded the ruling in both directions at once, against missing a sick man and against shutting out a healthy one.
Two Cases End With the Person Sent Home Clean
Leviticus 13 stops twice to rule that an alarming mark is harmless. Pale white patches are named and dismissed: “it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin; he is clean” (Leviticus 13:39). Dull white marks on the skin were a harmless blemish, and the person carrying them was clean.
Then baldness, stated twice for good measure: “And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean” (Leviticus 13:40). Losing the hair from the back of the head, or from the forehead, shut nobody out. Baldness was mocked and mourned in Israel (2 Kings 2:23; Isaiah 3:24), and this law refuses to put a man outside the camp for it.
Neither case adds a rule. Read together, they look like a law taking care that nobody was drawn into the examination who did not belong there.
The Chapter Names No Offering and No Cure
Leviticus 13 names the priest in forty of its fifty-nine verses. It never mentions an offering, an altar, blood, atonement or forgiveness once.
That silence stands out because of where the chapter sits. Leviticus 12 ends with a lamb and a bird and the word atonement, and the mother goes home clean (Leviticus 12:6-8). Leviticus 14 opens with two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop for the man who has been healed (Leviticus 14:1-7). Between those two chapters, Leviticus 13 gives a priest nothing to offer and nothing to apply.
He looks and he pronounces. God gave Israel a law that could tell a man exactly what was wrong with him, and gave that same law nothing to hand him afterwards.
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Difficult Verses Explained
Why Was a Man Covered From Head to Foot Pronounced Clean?
The chapter gives the ruling and withholds the reason, so the honest answer starts there. Verse 13 says only this: “if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean.” When the disease had spread over the whole body and turned every part of it white, the priest sent the man home.
The next verse gives the clue. “But when raw flesh appeareth in him, he shall be unclean” (Leviticus 13:14). Raw flesh is what makes a man unclean here, and skin that has gone entirely white has no raw flesh left in it.
Many commentators read the whole-body whiteness as the point where the disease had run its course and dried out, so that what the priest was seeing was a finished thing rather than a working one. On that reading the verdict is not strange at all: the chapter has been ruling on whether a condition is still active from the first verse.
Two things keep this from being more than a reading. The chapter never states the reason, and it never says the man was healed. It says he was clean, which in Leviticus is a question of access to the tabernacle rather than health (Leviticus 15:31).
Why Did Leviticus 13 Send a Man Out of the Camp Crying “Unclean, Unclean”?
The cry was a warning to anyone approaching him, and the clothing was mourning dress. “His clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean” (Leviticus 13:45). Torn clothes, an uncovered head and a covered lip were how Israel showed grief and shame (Leviticus 10:6; Ezekiel 24:17; Micah 3:7). The law put him in a mourner’s clothes, and passers-by heard him coming.
Verse 46 sends him outside the camp, and Numbers gives the reason in God’s own words. Israel was to put such people outside “that they defile not their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell” (Numbers 5:3). The boundary was drawn where it was because of who was living in the middle of the camp.
This is where the chapter is often read as cruelty, and the cost was real: verse 46 says plainly that he shall dwell alone. What the boundary was drawn around was the dwelling place of God rather than human company, and 2 Kings 7:3 later shows four men with the disease together at a city gate rather than each on his own.
None of it is a verdict on the worth of anyone who is ill; the chapter is ruling on who may approach the tent, and nothing else.
Why Does the Law Stop to Say a Bald Man Is Clean?
The chapter does not say why. What it does do is spend nearly forty verses teaching Israel to watch hair for signs of disease, so a reader arriving at verse 40 has the question ready, and Leviticus 13:40-41 answers it: bald at the back, bald at the front, clean either way.
The law then names the one thing that would change that. A reddish white sore rising on the bald skin, looking like the disease on the rest of the body, made the man unclean (Leviticus 13:42-44). The baldness was never the issue; a sore growing on it was.
Why Did a Priest Examine the Disease Instead of a Physician?
Because the question being decided was not medical. The priest is not told to treat anybody in this chapter, and no remedy is prescribed anywhere in it. What he decides is whether a person may approach the tabernacle, and that was priestly ground from the beginning.
The chapter says as much in its first line. Unlike Leviticus 12, this law is given to Moses “and Aaron” (Leviticus 13:1), and the priest appears in almost every verse after it. Later Jewish teachers filled in how the examination was carried out in practice, down to the hours of daylight when colour could be judged reliably; if their accounts hold, the inspection was treated as a careful judicial act rather than a glance.
Common Misunderstandings
- That this is the disease called leprosy today. The Hebrew word behind it, tsara’ath, covers a range of conditions, and the same chapter applies it to wool, linen and leather (Leviticus 13:47-49), which the modern disease does not affect. Leviticus 13 lists signs and never names a diagnosis.
- That being unclean meant being guilty. The chapter never charges the man in front of the priest with anything, and Leviticus 12 makes a mother unclean after childbirth, which was a thing God commanded people to do (Genesis 1:28). Scripture does record cases where God struck someone with this disease for a particular sin (Numbers 12:10; 2 Chronicles 26:19), and Leviticus 13 says nothing of the kind about the people it examines.
- That the priest healed or cured anyone. He looks and he pronounces, and the chapter contains no remedy at all. Cleansing is what Leviticus 14 is for, and even there the priest goes out to a man who has already been healed (Leviticus 14:3).
Christ Connection
The chapter’s silence is what points to Christ. What Leviticus 13 leaves undone is exactly what Jesus walked into.
He met a man in this condition early in His ministry. “And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean” (Matthew 8:2-3). A man with the disease knelt and said that Jesus could make him clean if He was willing, and Jesus reached out, touched him, and said He was.
Under the law, touching an unclean man left the toucher unclean (Leviticus 5:3; 22:4-5). Here it ran the other way and the man was made clean, and Jesus sent him straight to the priest with the offering Moses commanded (Matthew 8:4), which is the ceremony of Leviticus 14.
Three more connections run out of this chapter:
- The cry changed. Leviticus 13:45 put two words in the sufferer’s mouth. Luke describes ten men with the disease who “stood afar off” (Luke 17:12), and what they lifted their voices to say was “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” (Luke 17:12-13). Same distance, different cry, and all ten were cleansed.
- Outside the camp. “Without the camp shall his habitation be” (Leviticus 13:46) sent the unclean man to live beyond the edge of Israel’s camp. Hebrews takes up that language about Jesus: “Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach” (Hebrews 13:12-13). Jesus was put to death outside the city wall, and the letter sends His people out to where He is. Leviticus 13 used that ground as a punishment, and Hebrews makes it the meeting place.
When, Where, and Why
- When: In the second year after Israel left Egypt, at Mount Sinai. The tent had been raised on the first day of that year (Exodus 40:17) and Aaron and his sons had only recently been installed as priests (Leviticus 8-9), so the priesthood receiving this law was still new to the work. Several commentators note that skin disease was common in Egypt and suggest the nation carried it out with them, which would explain why a law like this was needed so soon.
- Where: The camp, and the ground beyond it. Those are the only two places the chapter names: wherever the priest carried out his examination, and “without the camp” (Leviticus 13:46), where a confirmed sufferer lived. The whole law is about the distance between those two points.
- Why: Because God had settled His dwelling in the middle of a camp full of ordinary people, and Moses is recording how those people were to meet a holy place. Leviticus 11 had ruled on animals and chapter 12 on childbirth. Chapter 13 takes the same question to the skin, and God states the purpose of the whole section plainly: these rulings existed so that Israel would not die in their uncleanness by defiling the tabernacle standing among them (Leviticus 15:31).
Key Verses
“And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.”
Leviticus 13:3
The priest examines the mark, and if the hair growing in it has turned white and the mark sits deeper than the skin around it, he declares the man unclean. This is the verse the rest of the chapter is built on, and it puts the whole decision on two things a man could see.
“It is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up: for he is unclean.”
Leviticus 13:11
Where the disease was long established, the priest ruled immediately and did not put the man through a week of waiting. The waiting periods everywhere else in the chapter were not a formality; they were for genuine doubt, and where there was none they were dropped.
“But if the scall be in his sight at a stay, and that there is black hair grown up therein; the scall is healed, he is clean: and the priest shall pronounce him clean.”
Leviticus 13:37
If the sore on the head had stopped changing and healthy black hair was growing in it, the priest declared the man healed and clean. Dark hair pushing back through the sore was the sign that told a priest the trouble was over.
“This is the law of the plague of leprosy in a garment of woollen or linen, either in the warp, or woof, or any thing of skins, to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean.”
Leviticus 13:59
The closing line says the law exists to declare things clean or unclean, whether the mark is in a woven cloth or in a piece of leather. The chapter names its own purpose in its last verse, and that purpose is a verdict.
Key Lessons from Leviticus 13
- A verdict heavy enough to cost a man his place in the camp rested on signs God had written down, not on the opinion of the man examining him (Leviticus 13:3).
- Careful judgment can be slow, and God built two weeks of waiting into a ruling rather than have a priest settle a doubtful case quickly (Leviticus 13:4-6).
- Something can look alarming and still be nothing, which is why the law took the trouble to name a freckled spot and a bald head and let both go (Leviticus 13:39-40).
- Knowing exactly what is wrong is not the same as being able to put it right, and Christ came doing the second thing (Leviticus 13:44; Matthew 8:3).
To go deeper into the lessons from this chapter, read our full study: 14 Life-Changing Lessons from Leviticus 13.
Bible Study Questions
- Read Leviticus 13:3, 13:30 and 13:37. What are the three things the priest was told to look at, and how do the signs change when the sore is in the hair?
- Compare Leviticus 13:4-6 with Leviticus 13:11. Why does the priest wait in one case and rule immediately in the other?
- Read Leviticus 13:12-17 slowly. What exactly changes the verdict from clean to unclean, and then back again?
- Leviticus 13:38-41 declares two conditions harmless. What do those verses protect a person from, and what does that add to your sense of what this law was for?
- Read Leviticus 13:45 beside Leviticus 10:6 and Ezekiel 24:17. What do the torn clothes, bare head and covered lip mean in each place?
- Read Leviticus 13:46 beside Hebrews 13:12-13. What does the New Testament do with the phrase “without the camp”?
- Read Matthew 8:1-4 with Leviticus 13 open in front of you. What did Jesus do that this chapter never gave a priest to do?
Frequently Asked Questions
Was the leprosy of Leviticus 13 contagious?
Bible teachers disagree, and the chapter does not settle it. Some point to the exclusion in verse 46 as evidence that it spread by contact. Others answer from the way the law itself worked: the priest handled the sufferer closely, the man covered head to foot was sent back into the camp, and Leviticus 14:36 has the priest empty a marked house first so its contents could be kept. Naaman is worth reading beside them, since he commanded Syria’s army and stood honoured before his king while he had the disease (2 Kings 5:1), which suggests these restrictions were Israel’s law rather than a general precaution.
What did “shut him up seven days” mean for the person?
It meant a week apart from ordinary contact, at the end of which the priest looked again. Two of the cases run that week twice over before any verdict was given (Leviticus 13:4-6). Miriam shows what the week looked like in practice: she was shut out of the camp for seven days and the whole nation waited and did not travel until she came back (Numbers 12:14-15).
Why does Leviticus 13 keep saying “a man or woman”?
Because the law applied to both and says so where a reader might have assumed otherwise. The phrase appears at the sore on the head or beard (Leviticus 13:29) and again at the pale white patches (Leviticus 13:38). A sore in the beard is a man’s case by nature, and God still had the ruling written to cover a woman.
Where does the Bible show this law actually being carried out?
In several places. Numbers 5:1-4 records Israel putting the affected outside the camp exactly as commanded. King Uzziah was thrust out of the temple and lived apart until the day he died (2 Chronicles 26:19-21), and four men with the disease sat outside a city gate through a famine (2 Kings 7:3). Moses also renewed this law for the next generation and told them to remember what happened to Miriam (Deuteronomy 24:8-9).
Does Leviticus 13 still apply to Christians today?
No. Every ruling in it governed approach to a tent standing in the middle of Israel’s camp, and that tent is gone, so there is no priest to examine anyone and no camp to be put out of. Hebrews moves the meeting place to Christ Himself (Hebrews 13:12-13). The chapter still teaches, because it shows a law that could see clearly and could not heal.
If you want to test what you remember, try our Leviticus 13 Quiz with Answers.
Leviticus 13, The Full Text (KJV)
Read the full chapter below for reference.
1 And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, saying,
2 When a man shall have in the skin of his flesh a rising, a scab, or a bright spot, and it be in the skin of his flesh like the plague of leprosy; then he shall be brought unto Aaron the priest, or unto one of his sons the priests:
3 And the priest shall look on the plague in the skin of the flesh: and when the hair in the plague is turned white, and the plague in sight be deeper than the skin of his flesh, it is a plague of leprosy: and the priest shall look on him, and pronounce him unclean.
4 If the bright spot be white in the skin of his flesh, and in sight be not deeper than the skin, and the hair thereof be not turned white; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague seven days:
5 And the priest shall look on him the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague in his sight be at a stay, and the plague spread not in the skin; then the priest shall shut him up seven days more:
6 And the priest shall look on him again the seventh day: and, behold, if the plague be somewhat dark, and the plague spread not in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean: it is but a scab: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
7 But if the scab spread much abroad in the skin, after that he hath been seen of the priest for his cleansing, he shall be seen of the priest again:
8 And if the priest see that, behold, the scab spreadeth in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a leprosy.
9 When the plague of leprosy is in a man, then he shall be brought unto the priest;
10 And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the rising be white in the skin, and it have turned the hair white, and there be quick raw flesh in the rising;
11 It is an old leprosy in the skin of his flesh, and the priest shall pronounce him unclean, and shall not shut him up: for he is unclean.
12 And if a leprosy break out abroad in the skin, and the leprosy cover all the skin of him that hath the plague from his head even to his foot, wheresoever the priest looketh;
13 Then the priest shall consider: and, behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: it is all turned white: he is clean.
14 But when raw flesh appeareth in him, he shall be unclean.
15 And the priest shall see the raw flesh, and pronounce him to be unclean: for the raw flesh is unclean: it is a leprosy.
16 Or if the raw flesh turn again, and be changed unto white, he shall come unto the priest;
17 And the priest shall see him: and, behold, if the plague be turned into white; then the priest shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague: he is clean.
18 The flesh also, in which, even in the skin thereof, was a boil, and is healed,
19 And in the place of the boil there be a white rising, or a bright spot, white, and somewhat reddish, and it be shewed to the priest;
20 And if, when the priest seeth it, behold, it be in sight lower than the skin, and the hair thereof be turned white; the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a plague of leprosy broken out of the boil.
21 But if the priest look on it, and, behold, there be no white hairs therein, and if it be not lower than the skin, but be somewhat dark; then the priest shall shut him up seven days:
22 And if it spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a plague.
23 But if the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not, it is a burning boil; and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
24 Or if there be any flesh, in the skin whereof there is a hot burning, and the quick flesh that burneth have a white bright spot, somewhat reddish, or white;
25 Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the hair in the bright spot be turned white, and it be in sight deeper than the skin; it is a leprosy broken out of the burning: wherefore the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy.
26 But if the priest look on it, and, behold, there be no white hair in the bright spot, and it be no lower than the other skin, but be somewhat dark; then the priest shall shut him up seven days:
27 And the priest shall look upon him the seventh day: and if it be spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is the plague of leprosy.
28 And if the bright spot stay in his place, and spread not in the skin, but it be somewhat dark; it is a rising of the burning, and the priest shall pronounce him clean: for it is an inflammation of the burning.
29 If a man or woman have a plague upon the head or the beard;
30 Then the priest shall see the plague: and, behold, if it be in sight deeper than the skin; and there be in it a yellow thin hair; then the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head or beard.
31 And if the priest look on the plague of the scall, and, behold, it be not in sight deeper than the skin, and that there is no black hair in it; then the priest shall shut up him that hath the plague of the scall seven days:
32 And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the plague: and, behold, if the scall spread not, and there be in it no yellow hair, and the scall be not in sight deeper than the skin;
33 He shall be shaven, but the scall shall he not shave; and the priest shall shut up him that hath the scall seven days more:
34 And in the seventh day the priest shall look on the scall: and, behold, if the scall be not spread in the skin, nor be in sight deeper than the skin; then the priest shall pronounce him clean: and he shall wash his clothes, and be clean.
35 But if the scall spread much in the skin after his cleansing;
36 Then the priest shall look on him: and, behold, if the scall be spread in the skin, the priest shall not seek for yellow hair; he is unclean.
37 But if the scall be in his sight at a stay, and that there is black hair grown up therein; the scall is healed, he is clean: and the priest shall pronounce him clean.
38 If a man also or a woman have in the skin of their flesh bright spots, even white bright spots;
39 Then the priest shall look: and, behold, if the bright spots in the skin of their flesh be darkish white; it is a freckled spot that groweth in the skin; he is clean.
40 And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean.
41 And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean.
42 And if there be in the bald head, or bald forehead, a white reddish sore; it is a leprosy sprung up in his bald head, or his bald forehead.
43 Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh;
44 He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head.
45 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean.
46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.
47 The garment also that the plague of leprosy is in, whether it be a woollen garment, or a linen garment;
48 Whether it be in the warp, or woof; of linen, or of woollen; whether in a skin, or in any thing made of skin;
49 And if the plague be greenish or reddish in the garment, or in the skin, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a plague of leprosy, and shall be shewed unto the priest:
50 And the priest shall look upon the plague, and shut up it that hath the plague seven days:
51 And he shall look on the plague on the seventh day: if the plague be spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in a skin, or in any work that is made of skin; the plague is a fretting leprosy; it is unclean.
52 He shall therefore burn that garment, whether warp or woof, in woollen or in linen, or any thing of skin, wherein the plague is: for it is a fretting leprosy; it shall be burnt in the fire.
53 And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin;
54 Then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more:
55 And the priest shall look on the plague, after that it is washed: and, behold, if the plague have not changed his colour, and the plague be not spread; it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire; it is fret inward, whether it be bare within or without.
56 And if the priest look, and, behold, the plague be somewhat dark after the washing of it; then he shall rend it out of the garment, or out of the skin, or out of the warp, or out of the woof:
57 And if it appear still in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; it is a spreading plague: thou shalt burn that wherein the plague is with fire.
58 And the garment, either warp, or woof, or whatsoever thing of skin it be, which thou shalt wash, if the plague be departed from them, then it shall be washed the second time, and shall be clean.
59 This is the law of the plague of leprosy in a garment of woollen or linen, either in the warp, or woof, or any thing of skins, to pronounce it clean, or to pronounce it unclean.
