Leviticus 5:4-10
Or there is the following case, that of violating an “oath of expression”: If a person swears, pronouncing with his lips his intention to harm himself or to do good to either himself or others in the future; or if he deliberately swears falsely regarding whether any particular event in the past concerning which a man may make an assertion in an oath actually took place; and, after swearing concerning his intention, the details of the oath escape him, and because of this memory lapse he violates his oath; or, when he deliberately swore falsely concerning something that occurred in the past, he did not realize that doing so would obligate him to offer up this sacrifice, and he is later informed that (in the case of intention for the future) he violated the oath or (in the case of swearing falsely about a past event) that what he did obligates him to bring this sacrifice, he thereby incurs guilt in one of these ways.
When someone incurs guilt in any one of these cases, he must confess the sin that he committed and bring to God an animal sacrifice in acknowledgment of his guilt in order to atone for his sin that he committed, this animal being a female from the flock—either a sheep or a goat—which he must then designate as a sin-offering. The priest must then make atonement for his sin by offering up this animal in accordance with all the procedures previously detailed with regard to a sin-offering offered up by an individual.
If he cannot afford a sheep, he must bring, in acknowledgment of his guilt for having sinned, two turtledoves or two young pigeons, of either gender and of the proper age, before God, i.e., to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, one for a sin-offering and one for an ascent-offering.
He must bring them to the priest, who must first offer up the fowl that is designated as the sin-offering. He must nip off its head by cutting through the nape of its neck below the back of its head with his fingernail, as is done with an ascent-offering of fowl, but in this case he must not sever the head completely, by cutting both the trachea and the esophagus; rather, he must cut only one or the other.
Holding the fowl near the Altar, he must sprinkle some of the blood of the sin-offering on the wall of the Altar by raising and lowering the fowl as its blood spurts onto the Altar. The remainder of the blood must then be pressed out onto the base of the Altar, as is done with ascent-offerings of fowl. The priest must nip the fowl’s head off and sprinkle and press out its blood with the intention that it be considered a sin-offering.
He must then offer up the second fowl as an ascent-offering, in accordance with the ordinance described for ascent-offerings of fowl. Thus the priest must make atonement for him, for his sin that he had committed, and he will then be forgiven. In this case, atonement consists of two stages: the sin-offering effects pardon and the ascent-offering is a gift to God to reinstate the forgiven sinner in His favor.
