as both the high priest and the whole council of elders ¹  can testify about me. From them ²  I also received ³  letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I was on my way ⁴  to make arrests there and bring ⁵  the prisoners ⁶  to Jerusalem ⁷  to be punished.

But the Lord said to him, “All right then, ¹  if anyone kills Cain, Cain will be avenged seven times as much.” ²  Then the Lord put a special mark ³  on Cain so that no one who found him would strike him down. ⁴ 

Reuben said to them, “Didn’t I say to you, ‘Don’t sin against the boy,’ but you wouldn’t listen? So now we must pay for shedding his blood!” ¹ 

He replied, “You have suggested your own punishment! ¹  The one who has it will become my slave, ²  but the rest of ³  you will go free.” ⁴ 

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge and wants to repay ¹  us in full ²  for all the harm ³  we did to him?”

¹ The Lord said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt; after that he will release you from this place. When he releases you, ²  he will drive you out completely ³  from this place.

They must keep my charge so that they do not incur sin on account of it ¹  and therefore die ²  because they profane it. I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ¹  Although ²  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ³ 

‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in loyal love, ¹  forgiving iniquity and transgression, ²  but by no means clearing ³  the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children until the third and fourth generations.’ ⁴ 

and your children will wander ¹  in the wilderness forty years and suffer for your unfaithfulness, ²  until your dead bodies lie finished ³  in the wilderness.

And he said to the community, “Move away from the tents of these wicked ¹  men, and do not touch anything they have, lest you be destroyed because ²  of all their sins.” ³ 

and the avenger of blood finds him outside the borders of the town of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the slayer, he will not be guilty of blood,

The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger ¹  to die.

If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail, ¹ 

The Lord will single him out ¹  for judgment ²  from all the tribes of Israel according to all the curses of the covenant written in this scroll of the law.

I will get revenge and pay them back at the time their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and the impending judgment ¹  is rushing upon them!”

Anyone who accidentally kills someone can escape there; ¹  these cities will be a place of asylum from the avenger of blood.

The sin we committed at Peor was bad enough. To this very day we have not purified ourselves; it even brought a plague on the community of the Lord. ¹ 

When Achan son of Zerah disobeyed the command about the city’s riches, the entire Israelite community was judged, ¹  though only one man had sinned. He most certainly died for his sin!’” ² 

If we have built ¹  an altar for ourselves to turn back from following the Lord by making ²  burnt sacrifices and grain offerings on it, or by offering ³  tokens of peace ⁴  on it, the Lord himself will punish us. ⁵