Números 25

Números 25:8

Slaughter has brought about righteousness, and mercy has been a cause of condemnation more than slaughter, because the latter has been according to the mind of God, but the former has been forbidden. It was reckoned to Phinehas for righteousness that he pierced to death the woman who committed fornication, together with the fornicator. But Samuel, that saint of God, although he wept and mourned and entreated for whole nights, could not rescue Saul from the condemnation which God issued against him, because he saved, contrary to the design of God, the king of the alien tribes whom he ought to have slain. — LETTER TO THE FALLEN THEODORE 2.3