¹³ Show no pity.^(A) You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood,^(B) so that it may go well with you.

³¹ Then the king commanded Benaiah, “Do as he says. Strike him down and bury him, and so clear me and my whole family of the guilt of the innocent blood^(A) that Joab shed.

⁹ and you will have purged^(A) from yourselves the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

¹⁶ You must destroy all the peoples the Lord your God gives over to you.^(A) Do not look on them with pity^(B) and do not serve their gods,^(C) for that will be a snare^(D) to you.

² and when the Lord your God has delivered^(A) them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy^(B) them totally.^[a](C) Make no treaty^(D) with them, and show them no mercy.^(E)

The Gibeonites Avenged

21 During the reign of David, there was a famine^(A) for three successive years; so David sought^(B) the face of the Lord. The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”

³³ “‘Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land,^(A) and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. ³⁴ Do not defile the land^(B) where you live and where I dwell,^(C) for I, the Lord, dwell among the Israelites.’”

⁵ No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

¹⁴ They buried the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan in the tomb of Saul’s father Kish, at Zela^(A) in Benjamin, and did everything the king commanded. After that,^(B) God answered prayer^(C) in behalf of the land.^(D)