Deuteronomy 21:1
Good News Translation
"Suppose someone is found murdered in a field in the land that the LORD your God is going to give you, and you do not know who killed him.

New Revised Standard Version
If, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down,

Contemporary English Version
Suppose the body of a murder victim is found in a field in the land the LORD your God is giving you, and no one knows who the murderer is.

New American Bible
If the corpse of someone who has been slain is found lying in the open, in the land the LORD, your God, is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed the person,

Douay-Rheims Bible
When there shall be found in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder,

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

When there shall be found in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder,

Psalm 5:6 Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity: thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the Lord will abhor.

Psalm 9:12 For requiring their blood, he hath remembered them: he hath not forgotten the cry of the poor.

Proverbs 28:17 A man that doth violence to the blood of a person, if he flee even to the pit, no man will stay him.

Isaiah 26:21 For behold the Lord will come out of his place, to visit the iniquity of the inhabitant of the earth against him: and the earth shall disclose her blood, and shall cover her slain no more.

Acts 28:4 And when the barbarians saw the beast hanging on his hand, they said one to another: Undoubtedly this man is a murderer, who, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance doth not suffer him to live.

Context
The Atonement for an Unsolved Murder
1When there shall be found in the land, which the Lord thy God will give thee, the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder,2Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about:…
Cross References
Genesis 4:10
And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth.

Deuteronomy 19:10
That innocent blood may not be shed in the midst of the land which the Lord thy God will give thee to possess, lest thou be guilty of blood.

Deuteronomy 20:20
But if there be any trees that are not fruitful, but wild, and fit for other uses, cut them down, and make engines, until thou take the city, which fighteth against thee.

Deuteronomy 21:2
Thy ancients and judges shall go out, and shall measure from the place where the body lieth the distance of every city round about:

Deuteronomy 20:20
Top of Page
Top of Page