46 Bible Verses about Killing

Most Relevant Verses

Genesis 9:5-6

And for your blood, which is your life, will I take payment; from every beast I will take it, and from every man will I take payment for the blood of his brother-man. Whoever takes a man's life, by man will his life be taken; because God made man in his image.

Leviticus 17:11

For the life of the flesh is in its blood; and I have given it to you on the altar to take away your sin: for it is the blood which makes free from sin because of the life in it.

Exodus 22:18-20

Any woman using unnatural powers or secret arts is to be put to death. Any man who has sex connection with a beast is to be put to death. Complete destruction will come on any man who makes offerings to any other god but the Lord.

Deuteronomy 17:8-13

If you are not able to give a decision as to who is responsible for a death, or who is right in a cause, or who gave the first blow in a fight, and there is a division of opinion about it in your town: then go to the place marked out by the Lord your God; And come before the priests, the Levites, or before him who is judge at the time: and they will go into the question and give you a decision: And you are to be guided by the decision they give in the place named by the Lord, and do whatever they say:read more.
Acting in agreement with their teaching and the decision they give: not turning to one side or the other from the word they have given you. And any man who, in his pride, will not give ear to the priest whose place is there before the Lord your God, or to the judge, is to be put to death: you are to put away the evil from Israel. And all the people, hearing of it, will be full of fear and put away their pride.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

If a man has a son who is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, who gives no attention to the voice of his father and mother, and will not be ruled by them, though they give him punishment: Then let his father and mother take him to the responsible men of the town, to the public place; And say to them, This son of ours is hard-hearted and uncontrolled, he will not give attention to us; he gives himself up to pleasure and strong drink.read more.
Then he is to be stoned to death by all the men of the town: so you are to put away the evil from among you; and all Israel, hearing of it, will be full of fear.

Deuteronomy 22:21-27

Then they are to make the girl come to the door of her father's house and she will be stoned to death by the men of the town, because she has done evil and put shame on Israel, by acting as a loose woman in her father's house: so you are to put away evil from among you. If a man is taken in the act of going in to a married woman, the two of them, the man as well as the woman, are to be put to death: so you are to put away the evil from Israel. If a young virgin has given her word to be married to a man, and another man meeting her in the town, has connection with her;read more.
Then you are to take the two of them to the doorway of the town, and have them stoned to death; the young virgin, because she gave no cry for help, though it was in the town, and the man, because he has put shame on his neighbour's wife: so you are to put away evil from among you. But if the man, meeting such a virgin in the open country, takes her by force, then only the man is to be put to death; Nothing is to be done to the virgin, because there is no cause of death in her: it is the same as if a man made an attack on his neighbour and put him to death: For he came across her in the open country, and there was no one to come to the help of the virgin in answer to her cry.

Deuteronomy 21:23

Do not let his body be on the tree all night, but put it to rest in the earth the same day; for the man who undergoes hanging is cursed by God; so do not make unclean the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage.

Exodus 21:13

But if he had no evil purpose against him, and God gave him into his hand, I will give you a place to which he may go in flight.

Deuteronomy 4:41-42

Then Moses had three towns marked out on the far side of Jordan looking to the east; To which anyone causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate, might go in flight; so that in one of these towns he might be kept from death:

Deuteronomy 19:2-13

You are to have three towns marked out in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage. You are to make ready a way, and see that the land which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, is marked out into three parts, to which any taker of life may go in flight. This is to be the rule for anyone who goes in flight there, after causing the death of his neighbour in error and not through hate;read more.
For example, if a man goes into the woods with his neighbour for the purpose of cutting down trees, and when he takes his axe to give a blow to the tree, the head of the axe comes off, and falling on to his neighbour gives him a wound causing his death; then the man may go in flight to one of these towns and be safe: For if not, he who has the right of punishment may go running after the taker of life in the heat of his wrath, and overtake him because the way is long, and give him a death-blow; though it is not right for him to be put to death because he was not moved by hate. And so I am ordering you to see that three towns are marked out for this purpose. And if the Lord your God makes wide the limits of your land, as he said in his oath to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he undertook to give to your fathers; If you keep and do all these orders which I give you today, loving the Lord your God and walking ever in his ways; then let three more towns, in addition to these three, be marked out for you: So that in all your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for your heritage, no man may be wrongly put to death, for which you will be responsible. But if any man has hate for his neighbour, and waiting for him secretly makes an attack on him and gives him a blow causing his death, and then goes in flight to one of these towns; The responsible men of his town are to send and take him, and give him up to the one who has the right of punishment to be put to death. Have no pity on him, so that Israel may be clear from the crime of putting a man to death without cause, and it will be well for you.

Joshua 6:17

And the town will be put to the curse, and everything in it will be given to the Lord: only Rahab, the loose woman, and all who are in the house with her, will be kept safe, because she kept secret the men we sent.

Deuteronomy 20:10-15

When you come to a town, before attacking it, make an offer of peace. And if it gives you back an answer of peace, opening its doors to you, then all the people in it may be put to forced work as your servants. If however it will not make peace with you, but war, then let it be shut in on all sides:read more.
And when the Lord your God has given it into your hands, let every male in it be put to death without mercy. But the women and the children and the cattle and everything in the town and all its wealth, you may take for yourselves: the wealth of your haters, which the Lord your God has given you, will be your food. So you are to do to all the towns far away, which are not the towns of these nations.

Leviticus 17:3-7

If any man of Israel puts to death an ox or a lamb or a goat, in or outside the tent-circle; And has not taken it to the door of the Tent of meeting, to make an offering to the Lord, before the Lord's House, its blood will be on him, for he has taken life, and he will be cut off from among his people: So that the children of Israel may take to the Lord, to the door of the Tent of meeting and to the priest, the offerings which they have put to death in the open country, and that they may make their peace-offerings to the Lord.read more.
And the priest will put blood on the altar of the Lord at the door of the Tent of meeting, burning the fat for a sweet smell to the Lord. And let them make no more offerings to evil spirits, after which they have gone, turning away from the Lord. Let this be a law to them for ever, through all their generations.

Deuteronomy 12:15-16

Only you may put to death animals, such as the gazelle or the roe, for your food in any of your towns, at the desire of your soul, in keeping with the blessing of the Lord your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may take of it. But you may not take the blood for food, it is to be drained out on the earth like water.

Deuteronomy 22:6-7

If by chance you see a place which a bird has made for itself in a tree or on the earth, with young ones or eggs, and the mother bird seated on the young ones or on the eggs, do not take the mother bird with the young: See that you let the mother bird go, but the young ones you may take; so it will be well for you and your life will be long.

Topics on Killing

Accidental Killings

Joshua 20:1-9

And the Lord said to Joshua,

Animals Killing

1 Kings 13:24

And he went on his way; but on the road a lion came rushing at him and put him to death; and his dead body was stretched in the road with the ass by its side, and the lion was there by the body.

Famine Killing

Jeremiah 38:2

These are the words of the Lord: Whoever goes on living in this town will come to his death by the sword or through need of food or by disease: but whoever goes out to the Chaldaeans will keep his life out of the power of the attackers and be safe.

God Killing All People

Genesis 6:7

And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them.

God Killing Individuals

Genesis 38:7

Now Er, Judah's first son, did evil in the eyes of the Lord, so that he put him to death.

Killing Brothers

Judges 8:18-19

Then he said to Zebah and Zalmunna, Where are the men whom you put to death at Tabor? And they gave answer, As you are, so were they; every one of them was like a king's son.

Killing Domesticated Animals

Exodus 12:29

And in the middle of the night the Lord sent death on every first male child in the land of Egypt, from the child of Pharaoh on his seat of power to the child of the prisoner in the prison; and the first births of all the cattle.

Killing Israelites

Esther 3:6

But it was not enough for him to make an attack on Mordecai only; for they had made clear to him who Mordecai's people were; so Haman made it his purpose to put an end to all the Jews, even Mordecai's people, through all the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Killing Kings

2 Samuel 1:14

And David said to him, Had you no fear of stretching out your hand to put to death the one marked with the holy oil?

Killing Many People

Ezekiel 9:9

Then he said to me, The sin of the children of Israel and Judah is very, very great, and the land is full of blood and the town full of evil ways: for they say, The Lord has gone away from the land, and the Lord does not see.

Killing One Another

Judges 7:22

And the three hundred gave a loud note on their horns, and every man's sword was turned by the Lord against his brother all through the army; and the army went in flight as far as Beth-shittah in the direction of Zeredah, to the edge of Abel-meholah by Tabbath.

Killing Priests

1 Samuel 22:17

Then the king said to the runners who were waiting near him, Put the priests of the Lord to death; because they are on David's side, and having knowledge of his flight, did not give me word of it. But the king's servants would not put out their hands to make an attack on the Lord's priests.

Killing Prophets

1 Kings 18:4

For when Jezebel was cutting off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took a hundred of them, and kept them secretly in a hole in the rock, fifty at a time, and gave them bread and water.)

Killing Sacrifices

Exodus 12:6

Keep it till the fourteenth day of the same month, when everyone who is of the children of Israel is to put it to death between sundown and dark.

Killing Sons And Daughters

2 Samuel 13:30

Now while they were on their way, news was given to David that Absalom had put to death all the sons of the king and that not one of them was still living.

Killing The Innocent

Lamentations 4:13

It is because of the sins of her prophets and the evil-doing of her priests, by whom the blood of the upright has been drained out in her.

Killing Whole Families

Genesis 32:11

Be my saviour from the hand of Esau, my brother: for my fear is that he will make an attack on me, putting to death mother and child.

Killing Wild Animals

Nahum 2:13

See, I am against you, says the Lord of armies, and I will have your war-carriages burned in the smoke, and your young lions will be food for the sword: you will no longer get your food by force on the earth, and the voice of your she-lions will be stopped for ever.

Killing Will Happen

2 Samuel 17:9

But he will certainly have taken cover now in some hole or secret place; and if some of our people, at the first attack, are overcome, then any hearing of it will say, There is destruction among the people who are on Absalom's side.

Killing Within Israel

Judges 8:17

And he had the tower of Penuel broken down and the men of the town put to death.

Mercy Killings

Psalm 136:17-20

To him who overcame great kings: for his mercy is unchanging for ever:

Restraints From Killing

Genesis 4:15

And the Lord said, Truly, if Cain is put to death, seven lives will be taken for his. And the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one might put him to death.

Rules About Killing Animals

Exodus 13:13

And for the young of an ass you may give a lamb in payment, or if you will not make payment for it, its neck is to be broken; but for all the first sons among your children, let payment be made.

Never miss a post

Related Readings

Theasaurus: Killing

Basic English, produced by Mr C. K. Ogden of the Orthological Institute - public domain