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Numbers describes a procedure for a case where a husband suspects his wife but lacks witnesses. The priest administers an oath and the woman drinks the water that carries the written curse, with different outcomes described for guilt or innocence. See Numbers 5:11–31.
11Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
12Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them, If any man`s wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
13and a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she is defiled, and there be no witness against her, and she isn`t taken in the act;
14and the spirit of jealousy come on him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy comes on him, and he is jealous of his wife, and she isn`t defiled:
15then shall the man bring his wife to the priest, and shall bring her offering for her, the tenth part of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil on it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it is a meal-offering of jealousy, a meal-offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to memory.
16The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh:
17and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is on the floor of the tent the priest shall take, and put it into the water.
18The priest shall set the woman before Yahweh, and let the hair of the woman`s head go loose, and put the meal-offering of memorial in her hands, which is the meal-offering of jealousy: and the priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that causes the curse.
19The priest shall cause her to swear, and shall tell the woman, If no man has lain with you, and if you haven`t gone aside to uncleanness, being under your husband, be you free from this water of bitterness that causes the curse.
20But if you have gone aside, being under your husband, and if you be defiled, and some man have lain with you besides your husband:
21then the priest shall cause the woman to swear with the oath of cursing, and the priest shall tell the woman, Yahweh make you a curse and an oath among your people, when Yahweh does make your thigh to fall away, and your body to swell;
22and this water that causes the curse shall go into your bowels, and make your body to swell, and your thigh to fall away. The woman shall say, Amen, Amen.
23The priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness:
24and he shall make the woman drink the water of bitterness that causes the curse; and the water that causes the curse shall enter into her [and become] bitter.
25The priest shall take the meal-offering of jealousy out of the woman`s hand, and shall wave the meal-offering before Yahweh, and bring it to the altar:
26and the priest shall take a handful of the meal-offering, as the memorial of it, and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall make the woman drink the water.
27When he has made her drink the water, then it shall happen, if she be defiled, and have committed a trespass against her husband, that the water that causes the curse shall enter into her [and become] bitter, and her body shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
28If the woman isn`t defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
29This is the law of jealousy, when a wife, being under her husband, goes aside, and is defiled;
30or when the spirit of jealousy comes on a man, and he is jealous of his wife; then shall he set the woman before Yahweh, and the priest shall execute on her all this law.
31The man shall be free from iniquity, and that woman shall bear her iniquity.