--- title: "Atonement for an Unsolved Murder" description: "If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the LORD your God is..." image: "" book: "Deuteronomy" bookId: "DEU" testament: "old" startChapter: 21 startVerse: 1 endChapter: 21 endVerse: 9 coversChapters: [21] aiTitle: "Atonement for an Unsolved Murder" aiDescription: "If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the LORD your God is..." hasAiStory: true location: "" persons: ["Elders","God","Priests","Sons of Levi"] hashtags: ["judgment","redemption","righteousness"] genre: "law" readingTime: 2 type: "adaptive" slug: "DEU/atonement-for-an-unsolved-murder" canonicalId: "DEU.21.1-21.9" chronologicalOrder: 311 relatedSlugs: [] prevSlug: "DEU/the-laws-of-warfare" nextSlug: "DEU/marrying-a-captive-woman-inheritance-rights-of-the-firstborn" --- If one is found slain, lying in a field in the land that the [LORD](/persons/god) your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, your [elders](/persons/elders) and judges must come out and measure the distance from the victim to the neighboring cities. Then the elders of the city nearest the victim shall take a heifer that has never been yoked or used for work, bring the heifer to a valley with running water that has not been plowed or sown, and break its neck there by the stream. And the [priests](/persons/priests), the [sons of Levi](/persons/sons%20of%20levi), shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to serve Him and pronounce blessings in His name and to give a ruling in every dispute and case of assault. Then all the elders of the city nearest the victim shall wash their hands by the stream over the heifer whose neck has been broken, and they shall declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it. Accept this atonement, O LORD, for Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, and do not hold the shedding of innocent blood against them.”
And the bloodshed will be atoned for. So you shall purge from among you the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you have done what is right in the eyes of the LORD.

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