regarding capital punishment originated in older Jewish and Christian teachings. For example, in 1 Corinthians 5:5, Paul discusses a man who copulated with his father's wife and commands church members to "deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." The Doctrine & Covenants also has passages favoring capital punishment, saying "And now, behold, I speak unto the church. Thou shalt not kill; and he that kills shall not have forgiveness in this world, nor in the world to come. And again, I say, thou shalt not kill; but he that killeth shall die." Elsewhere, though, people are portrayed as having been forgiven for murders. Underlying the blood atonement concept is the idea that spilled blood "cries out" for retribution, an idea that is advocated in several passages of Mormon scripture. In the Bible, the blood of Abel ascended to the ears of God after he was killed by Cain. In the Book of Mormon, the "blood of a righteous man" (Gideon) was said to "come upon" the theocratic leader Alma "for vengeance" against the murderer (Nehor). Mormon scripture also refers to the "cry" of the blood of the saints ascending from the ground up to the ears of God as a testimony against those who killed them. After the death of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young added an Oath of Vengeance to the Nauvoo Endowment ritual. Participants in the ritual made an oath to pray that God would "avenge the blood of the prophets on this nation." The prophet was Smith and "this nation" was the United States. (This oath was removed from the ceremony during the 1920s.) In 1877, Brigham Young noted what he viewed as a similarity between Joseph Smith's death and the blood atonement doctrine, in that "whether we believe in blood atonement or not", Joseph and other prophets "sealed their testimony with their blood." The LDS temple rituals formerly provided an example in which capital punishment is contemplated for violations of historical blood oaths in the Endowment ritual. The blood oaths in the ceremony were intended to protect the ritual's secrecy. In keeping with the idea that grievous crimes must be answered with bloodshed and that blood atonement should be voluntary, participants made an oath that rather than ever revealing the secret gestures of the ceremony, they would rather have