Numbers 35:31-34

The Message

³¹ “Don’t accept bribe money in exchange for the life of a murderer. He’s guilty and deserves the death penalty. Put him to death.

³² “And don’t accept bribe money for anyone who has fled to an asylum-city so as to permit him to go back and live in his own place before the death of the High Priest.

³³ “Don’t pollute the land in which you live. Murder pollutes the land. The land can’t be cleaned up of the blood of murder except through the blood of the murderer.

³⁴ “Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too—I, God, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.”