“When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD
your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their
cities and in their houses, you shall set apart three cities for
yourselves in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to
possess. You shall measure the distances and divide into three
parts the area of the land that the LORD your God gives you as a
possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.
“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there
may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally
without having hated him in the past—as when someone goes into the
forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe
to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes
his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and
live, lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer
and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally,
though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his
neighbor in the past. Therefore I command you, You shall set apart
three cities. And if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as
he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he
promised to give to your fathers—provided you are careful to keep
all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the LORD
your God and by walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three
other cities to these three, lest innocent blood be shed in your
land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, and
so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.
“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and
attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees
into one of these cities, then the elders of his city shall send
and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood,
so that he may die. Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall
purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may be
well with you.
“You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of
old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land
that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any
crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has
committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three
witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness
arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the
dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the
judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire
diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused
his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do
to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And
the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such
evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life,
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
