Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
"Your blood of your lives will I require" (Genesis 9:5) sounds like God is simply asking for or needing something from people.
"Require" meant "demand a reckoning for" or "avenge": a statement of judgment, not a polite ask.
Genesis 9:5
Genesis 9:5, in every translation this tool compares.
What is actually going on
In both Genesis 9:5 and Luke 11:50 ("the blood of all the prophets… may be required of this generation"), "require" carries the sense of exacting punishment or holding someone accountable for bloodshed: commentators gloss it as "visibly and terribly punished."
The modern sense of "require" as merely "need" or "stipulate" is much milder than the 1611 legal-judicial sense of demanding satisfaction for a wrong, which is closer to the archaic meaning of "avenge."
