4 He must lean his hand forcefully upon the head of the ascent-offering and it will be accepted for him to atone for him. The procedure of leaning on the animal is performed only in the Tabernacle (or its successor, the Temple), but not at a private altar, even when the use of such altars is permitted.
5 He must slaughter the bull before God, i.e., within the precincts of the Courtyard of the Tabernacle, and to the north of the Altar. The animal must be slaughtered with the explicit intention that it is to be offered up as a sacrifice; if you are just manipulating the knife and slaughter the animal unintentionally, the sacrifice is invalidated. From this point on, the sacrificial procedures are to be performed by the priests: Aaron’s sons, or after them, those of his descendants who are priests—i.e., who have not been demoted from the priesthood—must receive the blood in a consecrated vessel as it issues from the animal, bring the vessel containing the blood to the Altar, and, while standing on the ground next to the Altar, dash the blood onto the northwest and southeast corners of the Outer Altar, which is located outside the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. When the blood is dashed against the two diagonally opposite corners of the Altar, it falls onto all its four sides, and thus can be considered to be encircling the Altar.
If the blood of the ascent-offering has become mixed with the blood of other ascent-offerings, or with that of other offerings whose blood is also applied to the lower half of the Altar (i.e., peace-offerings or guilt-offerings), it may still be dashed onto the Altar. If, however, it has become mixed with the blood of sacrifices that had become unfit to be offered up or with that of those sin-offerings whose blood is not applied, like the ascent-offering, to the lower half of the Altar, but to the Inner Altar or to the upper half of the Outer Altar, it may not be dashed onto the Altar, and the sacrifice is thus invalidated.
If the Tabernacle has been dismantled, the blood of the animal may not be applied to the Altar, even if the Altar is still in its place. A regular priest must not perform any sacrificial rites while attired as a high priest or vice versa.
