²³ you must not leave the body hanging on the pole overnight.^(A) Be sure to bury^(B) it that same day, because anyone who is hung on a pole is under God’s curse.^(C) You must not desecrate^(D) the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law^(A) by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”^[a](B)

³¹ Now it was the day of Preparation,^(A) and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses^(B) during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down.

²¹ God made him who had no sin^(A) to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.^(B)

³ For I could wish that I myself^(A) were cursed^(B) and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people,^(C) those of my own race,^(D)

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.’”

⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders^(A) of these people, kill them and expose^(B) them in broad daylight before the Lord,^(C) so that the Lord’s fierce anger^(D) may turn away from Israel.”

²⁵ Even the land was defiled;^(A) so I punished it for its sin,^(B) and the land vomited out its inhabitants.^(C)

²⁶ Then Joshua put the kings to death and exposed their bodies on five poles, and they were left hanging on the poles until evening.

²⁷ At sunset^(A) Joshua gave the order and they took them down from the poles and threw them into the cave where they had been hiding. At the mouth of the cave they placed large rocks, which are there to this day.^(B)