And Lamech took for himself two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other, Zillah.

Zillah gave birth to Tubal-cain, the smith (craftsman) and teacher of every artisan in instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.

Lamech said to his wives,

“Adah and Zillah,
Hear my voice;
You wives of Lamech,
Listen to what I say;
For I have killed a man [merely] for wounding me,
And a boy [only] for striking (bruising) me.

Adam knew [Eve as] his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for [she said], “God has granted another child for me in place of Abel, because Cain killed him.”

And the male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Far be it from You to do such a thing—to strike the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right [by executing just and righteous judgment]?”

Now Abimelech had not yet come near her; so he said, “Lord, will you kill a people who are righteous and innocent and blameless [regarding Sarah]?

Abraham said, “Because I thought, ‘Surely there is no fear or reverence of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’

Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

Jacob answered, “First sell me your birthright (the rights of a firstborn).”

But his soul longed for and clung to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and he loved the girl and spoke comfortingly to her young heart’s wishes.

But Hamor conferred with them, saying, “The soul of my son Shechem [deeply] longs for your daughter [and sister]. Please give her to him as his wife.

Now on the third day [after the circumcision], when all the men were [terribly] sore and in pain, two of Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s [full] brothers, took their swords, boldly entered the city [without anyone suspecting them of evil intent], and they killed every male.

And as her soul was departing, (for she died), she named him Ben-oni (son of my sorrow); but his father called him Benjamin (son of the right hand).

Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood (murder)?

Come, let us [instead] sell him to these Ishmaelites [and Midianites] and not lay our hands on him, because he is our brother and our flesh.” So his brothers listened to him and agreed.

Now Reuben [unaware of what had happened] returned to the pit, and [to his great alarm found that] Joseph was not in the pit; so he tore his clothes [in deep sorrow].

But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord killed him [in judgment].

But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord; therefore He killed him also [in judgment].

He said, “What pledge shall I give you?” She said, “Your seal and your cord, and the staff that is in your hand.” So he gave them to her and was intimate with her, and she conceived by him.

While she was being brought out, she [took the things Judah had given her and] sent [them along with a message] to her father-in-law, saying, “I am with child by the man to whom these articles belong.” And she added, “Please examine [them carefully] and see [clearly] to whom these things belong, the seal and the cord and staff.”

And they said to one another, “Truly we are guilty regarding our brother [Joseph], because we saw the distress and anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us [to let him go], yet we would not listen [to his cry]; so this distress and anguish has come on us.”

Then Reuben spoke to his father, “You may put my two sons to death if I do not bring Benjamin back to you; put him in my care, and I will return him to you.”

Now, therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the young man is not with us, since his life is bound up in the young man’s life,

Only the land of the priests he did not buy, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived on the amount which Pharaoh gave them, so they did not sell their land.

“O my soul, do not come into their secret council;
Let not my glory (honor) be united with their assembly [for I knew nothing of their plot];
Because in their anger they killed men [an honored man, Shechem, and the Shechemites],
And in their self-will they lamed oxen.

When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he tried to kill Moses. Then Moses fled from Pharaoh’s presence and took refuge in the land of Midian, where he sat down by a well.

Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I am not a man of words (eloquent, fluent), neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and tongue.”

So I say to you, ‘Let My son go so that he may serve Me’; and if you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”’”

And the foremen said to them, “May the Lord look upon you and judge you, because you have made us odious (something hated) in the sight of Pharaoh and his servants, and you have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel [above the entry way] and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to slay you.

you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians, but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed [their heads] low and worshiped [God].

Now it happened at midnight that the Lord struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the cattle.

For it happened, when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, that the Lord struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of animal. Therefore, I sacrifice to the Lord all the males, the first [to be born] of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.’

If she does not please her master who has chosen her for himself [as a wife], he shall let her be redeemed [by her family]. He does not have the authority to sell her to a foreign people, because he has been unfair to her.

But if a man acts intentionally against another and kills him by [design through] treachery, you are to take him from My altar [to which he may have fled for protection], so that he may be put to death.

“If one man’s ox injures another’s so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide the proceeds equally; they shall also divide the dead ox [between them].

Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil [intent] their God brought them out to kill them in the mountains and destroy them from the face of the earth’? Turn away from Your burning anger and change Your mind about harming Your people.

He said to them, “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, ‘Every man strap his sword on his thigh and go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and every man kill his brother, and every man his friend, and every man his neighbor [all who continue pagan worship].’”

Then the Lord passed by in front of him, and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth (faithfulness);

This is so that the sons of Israel may bring their sacrifices which they were sacrificing [to idols] in the open field [where they killed them], that they may bring them in to the Lord, at the doorway of the Tent of Meeting to the priest, and sacrifice them as sacrifices of peace offerings to the Lord.

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement, by reason of the life [which it represents].’

Everyone who eats it will bear [the responsibility for] his wickedness, for he has profaned a holy thing of the Lord; and that person shall be cut off from his people [excluding him from the atonement made for them].

If a man has intimate relations with an animal, he shall most certainly be put to death; you shall kill the animal also.

And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim freedom [for the slaves] throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee (year of remission) for you, and each of you shall return to his own [ancestral] property [that was sold to another because of poverty], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated by bondage].

If you sell anything to your friend or buy from your friend, you shall not wrong one another.

According to the number of years after the Jubilee, you shall buy from your friend. And he is to sell to you according to the number of years of crops [which may be harvested before you must restore the property to him].

I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject nor separate itself from you.

if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul rejects My ordinances, so that you will not [obediently] do all My commandments, and in this way break My covenant,

I will destroy your high places [devoted to idolatrous worship], and cut down your incense altars, and heap your dead bodies upon the [crushed] bodies of your idols, and My soul will detest you [with deep and unutterable loathing].

But the land will be abandoned by them and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment for their wickedness and make amends because they rejected My ordinances and their soul rejected My statutes.

for all the firstborn are Mine. On the day that I killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I consecrated for Myself all the firstborn in Israel, both man and animal. They shall be mine; I am the Lord.”

(then the priest shall have the woman swear the oath of the curse, and say to the woman), “The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh waste away and your abdomen swell;

and this water that brings a curse shall go into your stomach, and make your abdomen swell and your thigh waste away.” And the woman shall say, “Amen. Amen (so let it be).”

When he has made her drink the water, then it shall come about, that if she has defiled herself and has been unfaithful to her husband, the curse water will go into her and cause bitterness and cause her abdomen to swell and her thigh to waste away, and the woman will become a curse among her people.

But now our appetite is gone; there is nothing at all [in the way of food] to be seen but this manna.”

‘The Lord is slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving wickedness and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting (avenging) the wickedness and guilt of the fathers on the children, to the third and fourth generations [that is, calling the children to account for the sins of their fathers].’

All Israel who were around them fled at their outcry, for they said, “The earth may swallow us also.”

So the sons of Israel killed Og and his sons and all his people, until there was no survivor left to him; and they took possession of his land.

So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each one of you must kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor [in worship].”

Now the name of the man of Israel who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri the son of Salu, a leader of a father’s household among the Simeonites.

They made war against Midian, just as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed every male.

They killed the kings of Midian along with the rest of their slain: Evi and Rekem and Zur [the father of Cozbi] and Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian; also Balaam the son of Beor they killed with the sword.

The blood avenger shall himself put the murderer to death; he shall put him to death when he meets him.

or if, in enmity, he struck the victim down with his hand, and he died, the one that struck the victim shall certainly be put to death; he is a murderer. The blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.

do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even as little as a footstep, because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession.

You will sell me food for money so that I [along with my people] will eat, and you will give me water for money so that I [along with my people] will drink; only let me [and my people] travel through [the land] on foot,

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.

so that someone who committed manslaughter could flee there, [that is, a person] who killed his neighbor unintentionally and without previously having hostility toward him, and that by escaping to one of these cities he might [claim the right of asylum and] save his life:

Your clothing did not wear out on you, nor did your feet swell these forty years.

so that the [people of the] land from which You brought us will not say, “Because the Lord was not capable of bringing them into the land which He had promised them and because He hated them He has brought them out to the wilderness [in order] to kill them.”

Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall become yours; your territory shall be from the wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates, as far as the western sea (the Mediterranean).

“You shall not eat anything that dies on its own. You may give it to the stranger (resident alien, foreigner) who is in your [city] gates, so that he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner [since they are not under God’s law], but you are a people holy (set apart) to the Lord your God. You shall not boil a young goat or a lamb in its mother’s milk.

They shall have equal portions to eat, except what they receive from the sale of their fathers’ estates.

otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the offender in the heat of anger, and overtake him, because it is a long way, and take his life, even though he did not deserve to die, since he did not hate his neighbor beforehand.

But it shall be that if you have no delight and take no pleasure in her, then you shall let her go wherever she wishes. You certainly shall not sell her for money; you shall not deal with her as a slave or mistreat her, because you have humbled her [by forced marriage].

that you shall take some of the first of all the produce of the ground which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God gives you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His Name (Presence).

‘Cursed is he who accepts a bribe to strike down an innocent person.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’

The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it will come down on you until you are destroyed.

The Lord will strike you on the knees and on the legs with sore boils that you cannot heal, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head.

The most refined and well-bred woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because she is so delicate and pampered, will be cruel and hostile toward the husband she cherishes and toward her son and daughter,

Among those nations you will find no peace (rest), and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.

I have given you every place on which the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised to Moses.

The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of Israel’s men, and chased them from the gate as far as [the bluffs of] Shebarim and struck them down as they descended [the steep pass], so the hearts of the people melted [in despair and began to doubt God’s promise] and became like water (disheartened).

When Joshua and all Israel saw that the [men in] ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city was ascending, they turned back and struck down the men of Ai.

But the sons of Israel did not strike them because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to them by the Lord the God of Israel [to spare them]. And all the congregation murmured [expressing great dissatisfaction] against the leaders.

And the Lord caused them to panic and be confused before Israel, and He struck them dead in a great slaughter at Gibeon, and chased them along the way that goes up to Beth-horon and struck them as far as Azekah and Makkedah.

As they fled before Israel, while they were at the descent of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down large stones [of hail] from heaven on them as far as Azekah, and they died. More [Amorites] died because of the hailstones than those whom the sons of Israel killed with the sword.

Then afterward Joshua struck them [with his sword] and put them to death, and he hung them on five trees; and they hung on the trees until evening.

from Mount Halak, that rises toward Seir [in the south], even as far as Baal-gad in the Valley of Lebanon at the foot of Mount Hermon [in the north]. He captured all their kings and struck them and put them to death.

and Zelah, Haeleph and the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah, Kiriath; fourteen cities with their villages. This is the inheritance of [the tribe of] the sons of Benjamin according to their families (clans).

Only be very careful and diligently observe the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord has commanded you to love the Lord your God and walk in all His ways and keep His commandments and hold fast to Him and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul [your very life].”

Then [the warriors of the tribe of] Judah went with [the warriors of the tribe of] Simeon his brother, and they struck the Canaanites living in Zephath and utterly destroyed it. So the city was called Hormah (destruction).

The border of the Amorites ran from the ascent of Akrabbim, from Sela (rock) and upward.

They struck down at that time about ten thousand Moabite men, all strong, courageous men; not a man escaped.

After Ehud came Shamgar the son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistine men with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

She said, “I will certainly go with you; nevertheless, the journey that you are about to take will not be for your honor and glory, because the Lord will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman.” Then Deborah got up and went with Barak to Kedesh.

“The torrent Kishon swept the enemy away,
The ancient torrent, the torrent Kishon.
O my soul, march on with strength.

Then the men of Ephraim took the two leaders of Midian, Oreb and Zeeb, and they killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and they killed Zeeb at the wine press of Zeeb, and pursued Midian; and they brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon from across the Jordan.

He tore down the tower of Penuel and killed the men of the city.