22 If a leader of Israel sins by unintentionally transgressing any of the passive commandments of God, his God, thereby incurring guilt, then—
23 if the sin that he committed is made known to him, he must bring his offering, an unblemished male goat up to a year old, to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
24 He must lean his hand forcefully upon the goat’s head and slaughter it in the place where he slaughters ascent-offerings, i.e., on the north side of the Altar, before God, i.e., within the precincts of the Courtyard of the Tabernacle. He must slaughter it with the intention that it be a sin-offering and that it undergo the procedures applying to sin-offerings; otherwise, it becomes invalidated. The same applies to all sin-offerings.
25 The priest must ascend the ramp of the Altar, take some of the blood of the sin-offering with his finger, and place it on the four protrusions of the Altar used for ascent-offerings. (If, however, he applies the blood to only one of the protrusions, the sacrifice is still valid after the fact.) He must then descend the ramp and pour the rest of its blood onto the south side of the base of the Altar used for ascent-offerings.
26 He must burn up all its fat on the Altar, just like the fat of the peace-offering of goats. Thus the priest makes atonement for the leader’s sin so that he may be forgiven. The remainder of the goat is eaten by the priests, like that of the sin-offering of an individual.
In contrast to the special sin-offering of the high priest, which, as stated above, will only impress the people with the importance of seeking atonement for their sins (since the concept of atonement is the essence of the priesthood), the special sin-offering for the leader will impress the people with the necessity to guard themselves from sinning in the first place (for his function is to lead the people and govern them properly). Seeing that their leader is sufficiently cognizant of the gravity of sin to take care to atone for his inadvertent sins (and is therefore certainly sufficiently cognizant of the gravity of sin to repent for his intentional sins), the rest of the people will be inspired to similarly guard themselves from sin—and of course, if they do sin, even inadvertently, to seek atonement.
