Sotah (Hebrew: סוֹטָה or Hebrew: שׂוֹטָה[1]) is a tractate of the Talmud in Rabbinic Judaism. The tractate explains the ordeal of the bitter water, a trial by ordeal of a woman suspected of adultery, which is prescribed by the Book of Numbers in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

Sotah is a tractate in Seder Nashim (“Order of Women,” which addresses family law). Its first six chapters discuss laws relating to a sotah, or woman whose husband suspects her of adultery.

Sotah (beginning in Talmudic literature) is the term for a woman suspected of adultery, who must undergo an ordeal that will establish her guilt or innocence. Numbers 5:11–31 describes in detail the ritual, which a priest performs in the Tabernacle to determine whether a woman whose husband suspects her of adultery is indeed guilty.

Bitter water is "מֵי הַמָּרִים" mei ha-marim.In Rabbinic Judaism, the woman undergoing this ritual was called a sotah (Hebrew: שוטה [1] / סוטה, "strayer"). The term sotah itself is not found in the Hebrew Bible but is Mishnaic Hebrew based on the verse "if she has strayed" (verb: שטה satah) in Numbers 5:12. [2] [3] The ordeal is discussed in the Sotah tractate of the Talmud.

Sotah is a tractate in Seder Nashim (“Order of Women,” which addresses family law). Its first six chapters discuss laws relating to a sotah, or woman whose husband suspects her of adultery.

The sotah drink ingredients are, if unpleasant, entirely innocuous. And so it would take a divine intervention to bring about the described punishment. Pondering those facts well is the beginning of understanding why the ritual exists and why, unlike every other law in the Torah, the sotah faces not a trial but an ordeal.

SOTAH (Heb. סוֹטָה; "Errant Wife"), the fifth tractate in the current edition of the Mishnah order of Nashim, with Tosefta and Gemara in the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds.

Sotah is a tractate in Seder Nashim (“Order of Women,” which addresses family law). Its first six chapters discuss laws relating to a sotah, or woman whose husband suspects her of adultery.

What is the process through which a sotah is compelled to drink the bitter water? First the husband comes to the court in his city and tells them: "I warned my wife [not to enter into privacy] with so and so, and she entered into privacy with him.

The Sotah is a woman who, suspected by her husband of infidelity, has to submit to the ordeal of drinking the bitter water to establish her innocence. The main subject treated in the Tractate is accordingly the Scriptural section Numbers V, 12-31, which is examined in the closest detail.