Deuteronomy 19:1-13 ▼

1 “When your God YHWH cuts off the nations whose land your God YHWH is giving to you, and you have dispossessed them, and dwelt in their cities and in their houses,

2 you separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which your God YHWH is giving to you to possess it.

3 You prepare the way for yourself, and have divided into three parts the border of your land which your God YHWH causes you to inherit, and it has been for the fleeing there of every manslayer.

4 And this [is] the matter of the manslayer who flees there, and has lived: he who strikes his neighbor unknowingly, and is not hating him before—

5 even he who comes into a forest with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand has driven with an axe to cut the tree, and the iron has slipped from the wood, and has met his neighbor, and he has died—he flees to one of these cities, and has lived,

6 lest the redeemer of blood pursue after the manslayer when his heart is hot and has overtaken him, because the way is great, and has struck his life, and he has no sentence of death, for he is not hating him before;

7 therefore I am commanding you, saying, You separate three cities for yourself.

8 And if your God YHWH enlarges your border, as He has sworn to your fathers, and has given to you all the land which He has spoken to give to your fathers—

9 when you keep all this command to do it, which I am commanding you today, to love your God YHWH and to walk in His ways [for] all the days—then you have added three more cities for yourself to these three;

10 and [do this] lest innocent blood is shed in the midst of your land which your God YHWH is giving to you [for] an inheritance, and there has been blood on you.

11 And when a man is hating his neighbor, and has lain in wait for him, and risen against him, and struck his life, and he has died, then he has fled to one of these cities,

12 and [the] elderly of his city have sent and taken him from there, and given him into the hand of the redeemer of blood, and he has died;

13 your eye has no pity on him, and you have put away the innocent blood from Israel, and it is well with you.