Lamentations 4:7

⁷Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

¹²Then our sons will be like well-nurtured plants, our daughters like pillars carved to adorn a palace.

¹⁰My beloved is white and ruddy. The best among ten thousand.

¹²He sent, and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with a handsome face and good appearance. The LORD said, “Arise! Anoint him, for this is he.”

¹¹I raised up some of your sons for prophets, and some of your young men for Nazirites. Isn’t this true, you children of Israel?” says the LORD. ¹²“But you gave the Nazirites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, ‘Don’t prophesy!’

¹⁵At the end of ten days, their faces appeared fairer and they were fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate of the king’s delicacies.

⁵for, behold, you shall conceive and give birth to a son. No razor shall come on his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb. He shall begin to save Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.”

⁷but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink. Don’t eat any unclean thing, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”

²“Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them: ‘When either man or woman shall make a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the LORD, ³he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar of wine, or vinegar of fermented drink, neither shall he drink any juice of grapes, nor eat fresh grapes or dried. ⁴All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is made of the grapevine, from the seeds even to the skins.

⁵“‘All the days of his vow of separation no razor shall come on his head, until the days are fulfilled in which he separates himself to the LORD. He shall be holy. He shall let the locks of the hair of his head grow long.

⁶“‘All the days that he separates himself to the LORD he shall not go near a dead body. ⁷He shall not make himself unclean for his father, or for his mother, for his brother, or for his sister, when they die, because his separation to God ^[+] is on his head. ⁸All the days of his separation he is holy to the LORD.

⁹“‘If any man dies very suddenly beside him, and he defiles the head of his separation, then he shall shave his head in the day of his cleansing. On the seventh day he shall shave it. ¹⁰On the eighth day he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons to the priest, to the door of the Tent of Meeting. ¹¹The priest shall offer one for a sin offering, and the other for a burnt offering, and make atonement for him, because he sinned by reason of the dead, and shall make his head holy that same day. ¹²He shall separate to the LORD the days of his separation, and shall bring a male lamb a year old for a trespass offering; but the former days shall be void, because his separation was defiled.

¹³“‘This is the law of the Nazirite: when the days of his separation are fulfilled, he shall be brought to the door of the Tent of Meeting, ¹⁴and he shall offer his offering to the LORD: one male lamb a year old without defect for a burnt offering, one ewe lamb a year old without defect for a sin offering, one ram without defect for peace offerings, ¹⁵a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mixed with oil, and unleavened wafers anointed with oil with their meal offering and their drink offerings. ¹⁶The priest shall present them before the LORD, and shall offer his sin offering and his burnt offering. ¹⁷He shall offer the ram for a sacrifice of peace offerings to the LORD, with the basket of unleavened bread. The priest shall offer also its meal offering and its drink offering. ¹⁸The Nazirite shall shave the head of his separation at the door of the Tent of Meeting, take the hair of the head of his separation, and put it on the fire which is under the sacrifice of peace offerings. ¹⁹The priest shall take the boiled shoulder of the ram, one unleavened cake out of the basket, and one unleavened wafer, and shall put them on the hands of the Nazirite after he has shaved the head of his separation; ²⁰and the priest shall wave them for a wave offering before the LORD. They are holy for the priest, together with the breast that is waved and the thigh that is offered. After that the Nazirite may drink wine.

²¹“‘This is the law of the Nazirite who vows and of his offering to the LORD for his separation, in addition to that which he is able to afford. According to his vow which he vows, so he must do after the law of his separation.’”

¹⁷He told her all his heart and said to her, “No razor has ever come on my head; for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother’s womb. If I am shaved, then my strength will go from me and I will become weak, and be like any other man.”