Bible Verses About Avenger of Blood: Scriptures relating to

I will certainly demand an accounting for the blood of your lives: I will demand it from every animal and from every human being. I will demand from every human being an accounting for the life of his fellow human being.

Whoever sheds human blood, by a human being will his own blood be shed; for God made human beings in his image.

The next-of-kin avenger is to put the murderer to death himself - upon meeting him, he is to put him to death.

Likewise, if he shoves him out of hatred; or intentionally throws something at him, causing his death;

or out of hostility strikes him with his hand, so that he dies; then the one who struck him must be put to death; he is a murderer; and the next-of-kin avenger is to put the murderer to death upon meeting him.

"'But suppose he shoves him suddenly, but without hostility; or he throws something at him unintentionally;

or, without seeing him, being his enemy or seeking to harm him, he throws a stone big enough to cause death; and the person dies.

Then the community is to judge between the one who struck him and the next-of-kin avenger in accordance with these rules;

and the community is to save the killer from the next-of-kin avenger. The community is to return him to the city of refuge to which he fled, and he is to live there until the cohen hagadol, who was anointed with the holy oil, dies.

But if the killer ever goes beyond the limits of the city of refuge he fled to,

and the next-of-kin avenger finds him outside the limits of his city of refuge, and the avenger kills the killer, he will not be guilty of the man's blood;

because he must stay in his city of refuge until the death of the cohen hagadol. But after the death of the cohen hagadol the killer may return to the land he owns.

These things shall constitute your standard for judgment through all your generations, wherever you live.

The killer who will live if he flees there is someone who has killed his fellow member of the community by mistake, who did not hate him in the past.

An example would be if a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood and takes a stroke with the axe to fell a tree, but the head of the axe flies off the handle, hits his neighbor and kills him. Then he is to flee to one of these cities and live there.

Otherwise the next-of-kin avenger, in the heat of his anger, may pursue the killer, overtake him because the distance [to the city of refuge] is long, and strike him dead - even though he didn't deserve to die, inasmuch as he hadn't hated him in the past.

This is why I am ordering you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

"If ADONAI your God expands your territory, as he swore to your ancestors that he would, and gives you all the land he promised to give to your ancestors -

provided you keep and observe all these mitzvot I am giving you today, loving ADONAI your God and always following his ways - then you are to add three more cities for yourselves, besides these three;

so that innocent blood will not be shed in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus blood guilt be on you.

"However, if someone hates his fellow member of the community, lies in wait for him, attacks him, strikes him a death blow, and then flees into one of these cities;

then the leaders of his own town are to send and bring him back from there and hand him over to the next-of-kin avenger, to be put to death.

You are not to pity him. Rather, you must put an end to the shedding of innocent blood in Isra'el. Then things will go well with you.

ADONAI said to Y'hoshua,

"Tell the people of Isra'el, 'Select the cities of refuge about which I spoke to you through Moshe;