17. When Aaron makes the Most Holy Place ready for service to the Lord, no one is allowed in the Meeting Tent until he comes out. So Aaron will perform the acts to remove sins from himself, his family, and all the people of Israel, so they will belong to the Lord.
18. Afterward he will go out to the altar that is before the Lord and will make it ready for service to the Lord. Aaron will take some of the bull’s blood and some of the goat’s blood and put it on the corners of the altar on all sides.
19. Then, with his finger, he will sprinkle some of the blood on the altar seven times to make the altar holy for the Lord and clean from all the sins of the Israelites.
20. “When Aaron has finished making the Most Holy Place, the Meeting Tent, and the altar ready for service to the Lord, he will offer the living goat.
21. He will put both his hands on the head of the living goat, and he will confess over it all the sins and crimes of Israel. In this way Aaron will put the people’s sins on the goat’s head. Then he will send the goat away into the desert, and a man who has been appointed will lead the goat away.
22. So the goat will carry on itself all the people’s sins to a lonely place in the desert. The man who leads the goat will let it loose there.
23. “Then Aaron will enter the Meeting Tent and take off the linen clothes he had put on before he went into the Most Holy Place; he must leave these clothes there.
24. He will bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his regular clothes. Then he will come out and offer the whole burnt offering for himself and for the people, to remove sins from himself and the people so they will belong to the Lord.