Study Shevuot folio 14B with parallel Hebrew-English text, traditional commentary, and modern study tools. Free access to Babylonian Talmud online.
Text Excerpt
הפנימית נאכלת, והחיצונה נשרפת. וכל שלא נעשית בכל אלו – הנכנס לשם אין חייב עליה.
When they would reach the end of the place that they desired to consecrate, the inner thanks-offering would be eaten and the outer one would be burned. The details of this ceremony will be described in the Talmud. And with regard to any addition to the Temple that was not made with all these ceremonial procedures, one who enters there while ritually impure is not liable to bring an offering if his entry was unwitting, nor to be punished with karet, excision from the World-to-Come, if his entry was intentional.
נטמא בעזרה, ונעלמה ממנו טומאה וזכור את המקדש; נעלם הימנו מקדש וזכור הטומאה; נעלם ממנו זה וזה; והשתחוה או ששהה בכדי השתחואה או בא לו בארוכה – חייב. בקצרה – פטור.
The first part of the Mishnah discussed one who became ritually impure before entering the Temple. The Mishnah proceeds to consider a case involving one who was ritually pure when he entered the Temple but who became impure while in the Temple courtyard, and afterward, his impurity was hidden from him but he remembered that he was standing in the Temple, or the fact that he was standing in the Temple was hidden from him but he remembered his impurity, or both this fact and that fact were hidden from him. In all these cases, if he bowed down, or he tarried in the Temple courtyard long enough to bow down even though he did not actually bow, or he went out by way of a longer route when he could have taken a shorter route, he is liable to bring a sliding-scale offering. But if he left the Temple via the shortest way, he is exempt.
זו היא מצות עשה שבמקדש שאין חייבין עליה.
This mitzva that the ritually impure must be sent out of the Temple is the positive mitzva concerning the Temple for which, as is taught elsewhere in the Mishnah (Horayot 8b), the Sanhedrin is not liable to bring an offering for an erroneous ruling. A communal bull sin-offering is brought because of the unwitting transgression of a prohibition involving an action by the Jewish people resulting from an erroneous halakhic decision handed down by the Sanhedrin. But if the Sanhedrin mistakenly ruled that one who became impure while in the Temple may leave by way of a longer route, they do not bring this offering, as it is brought only for an erroneous ruling on a matter that requires the bringing of a fixed sin-offering, and not a sliding-scale offering, for its unwitting violation.