I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Leviticus 14-15.

The passage describes the process whereby a person who has been declared to no longer be contagious must go through a ceremony to become ceremonially clean once again.  The process both reduces the risk that the person will become reinfected and shows that there is a spiritual element to recovery from a serious illness.  Once a person has completed a quarantine to determine that they are not contagious, or no longer contagious, they were to remove all of the hair from their body and wash their clothes.  The priest would conduct a purification ceremony over them, then they would remain outside of their tent for seven more days.  At the end of these seven days of purification, they would once more shave all of the hair off of their body, then offer a purification offering and a sin offering.  While I am glad that we no longer need to go through the complex, involved ritual described here, there is a lesson to be learned about welcoming back those who were, for valid reasons, “outcast” from the community and who have done what is necessary to be welcomed back.