²¹ When Reuben^(A) heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said.^{(B) 22} “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern^(C) here in the wilderness, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.^(D)

⁵ And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting.^(A) I will demand an accounting from every animal.^(B) And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.^(C)

³² The Lord will repay^(A) him for the blood he shed,^(B) because without my father David knowing it he attacked two men and killed them with the sword. Both of them—Abner son of Ner, commander of Israel’s army, and Amasa^(C) son of Jether, commander of Judah’s army—were better^(D) men and more upright than he.

²² King Joash did not remember the kindness Zechariah’s father Jehoiada had shown him but killed his son, who said as he lay dying, “May the Lord see this and call you to account.”^(A)