Pick up millstones and grind flour! Remove your veil, strip off your skirt, expose your legs, cross the streams!

You can try to wash away your guilt with a strong detergent. You can use as much soap as you want. But the stain of your guilt is still there for me to see,” ¹  says the Lord God. ² 

“Oh people of Jerusalem, purify your hearts from evil ¹  so that you may yet be delivered. How long will you continue to harbor up wicked schemes within you?

I will purify them from all the sin that they committed against me. I will forgive all their sins which they committed in rebelling against me. ¹ 

“Son of man, turn toward ¹  the south, ²  and speak out against the south. ³  Prophesy against the open scrub ⁴  land of the Negev,

I will sprinkle you with pure water ¹  and you will be clean from all your impurities. I will purify you from all your idols.

“‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: In the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will populate the cities and the ruins will be rebuilt.

Therefore, because of you, ¹  Zion will be plowed up like ²  a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins, and the Temple Mount ³  will become a hill overgrown with brush! ⁴ 

He will act like a refiner and purifier of silver and will cleanse the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then they will offer the Lord a proper offering.

He ¹  saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

I did not recognize ¹  him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.” ² 

And now what are you waiting for? ¹  Get up, ²  be baptized, and have your sins washed away, ³  calling on his name.’ ⁴ 

They are illustrations of this true proverb: ¹  “A dog returns to its own vomit,” ²  and “A sow, after washing herself, ³  wallows in the mire.” ⁴ 

Then the one presenting the offering must wash the entrails and the legs in water, and the priest must present all of it and offer it up in smoke on the altar – it is a burnt offering, a gift of a soothing aroma to the Lord.

And do this ¹  to them to purify them: Sprinkle water of purification ²  on them; then have them shave ³  all their body ⁴  and wash ⁵  their clothes, and so purify themselves. ⁶ 

The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer must wash his clothes and be ceremonially unclean until evening. This will be a permanent ordinance both for the Israelites and the resident foreigner who lives among them.

And the clean person must sprinkle the unclean on the third day and on the seventh day; and on the seventh day he must purify him, ¹  and then he must wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and he will be clean in the evening.

And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. They hold fast to many other traditions: the washing of cups, pots, kettles, and dining couches. ¹ ) ² 

So ¹  I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” ²  Then ³  he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. They ⁴  have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb!

Josiah also got rid of ¹  the ritual pits used to conjure up spirits, ²  the magicians, personal idols, disgusting images, ³  and all the detestable idols that had appeared in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem. In this way he carried out the terms of the law ⁴  recorded on the scroll that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the Lord’s temple.