Also one male goat for a sin offering: See verse 15. During each day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread one adult billy goat also had to be sacrificed.

To make atonement for you: For the Hebrew verb rendered make atonement, see the comments on 5.8 and 6.11. This verb literally means “cover,” that is, appease or make amends, so that fellowship is restored between the defiled Israelites and the LORD. Good News Translation renders this clause as “and in this way perform the ritual of purification for the people,” which clarifies what atonement means in this context of prescribed worship. Good News Translation‘s model stresses that the ceremony has a ritual, rather than just a moral, meaning.

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .