Discovery BoxDeuteronomy 19:10 
Context19:10 You must not shed innocent blood 1 in your land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, for that would make you guilty. 2
Deuteronomy 19:13
Context19:13 You must not pity him, but purge out the blood of the innocent 3 from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
1 tn Heb “innocent blood must not be shed.” The Hebrew phrase דָּם נָקִי (dam naqiy) means the blood of a person to whom no culpability or responsibility adheres because what he did was without malice aforethought (HALOT 224 s.v דָּם 4.b).
2 tn Heb “and blood will be upon you” (cf. KJV, ASV); NRSV “thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.”
3 sn Purge out the blood of the innocent. Because of the corporate nature of Israel’s community life, the whole community shared in the guilt of unavenged murder unless and until vengeance occurred. Only this would restore spiritual and moral equilibrium (Num 35:33).
