Leviticus 10:1-2 has God kill Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu with fire for offering 'unauthorized fire'/incense in his presence.

The narrative context matters enormously here. Leviticus 10 falls immediately after the seven-day ordination and inauguration of the Tabernacle cult (Lev 8-9), the very moment fire had just come out from the LORD's presence to consume the first sacrifice as the sign that God's glory now dwelt among Israel (9:23-24) — this is day one of the newly instituted, uniquely sacred priestly order. Nadab and Abihu offer 'esh zarah,' unauthorized fire not drawn from the sanctioned altar (compare the requirement in Lev 16:12 that incense fire specifically come from the altar) — an act of unauthorized liturgical innovation at the single most sacred, newly-inaugurated moment of Israel's cultic life. Jewish exegetical tradition has long connected this to the prohibition immediately following in 10:9 (priests forbidden wine before entering the tent), suggesting negligence or intoxication compounding the offense. The episode's severity parallels Uzzah's death for touching the ark (2 Sam 6): both are 'boundary-establishing' narratives at the founding of a new sacred institution, dramatizing that the priesthood's unique mediatorial access to the presence of a holy God cannot be treated casually without undermining the entire system's seriousness — not a template applied to every subsequent minor liturgical error in Israel's history (no comparable incident recurs). The sheet's paraphrase that 'people using incense are banished forever' also overstates the text: Moses' instruction to Aaron and his remaining sons not to observe mourning customs applies specifically to them as officiating priests at that moment, on pain of death for leaving their post, not a universal ban on incense use. Concede honestly: this remains a text depicting severe, immediate judgment that a modern reader finds jarring given the apparent proportion of the offense.

The episode establishes the doctrine of divine holiness as an ontological reality about approaching the transcendent Creator, not an arbitrary rule — the graduated Tabernacle access system (courtyard, holy place, holy of holies) that this narrative reinforces is theologically resolved in Christ, whose death tears the Temple veil (Matt 27:51), opening the direct access to God's presence (Heb 10:19-22) that this earlier system guarded so carefully.