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the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their cities and in their houses, 2 you are to set apart three cities for yourself in the midst of your land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. 3 You are to build roads to them, and divide into three parts the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that anyone who kills a man may flee there.
4 “This is the rule concerning the man who kills a person and flees there to save his life: If anyone kills his neighbour unintentionally, without having hated him previously— 5 for example, a man goes into the forest with his neighbour to cut timber, and as his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, the head flies off from the handle and strikes his neighbour so he dies, then that man may flee to one of these cities and live. 6 Otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer while his anger is hot and overtake him, because the distance is great, and strike him dead, even though he was not deserving of death, since he had not been at enmity with the victim in the past. 7 That is why I command you: ‘You are to set aside for yourself three cities’.
8 “If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as He promised on oath to your forefathers, and gives you all the land that He promised them— 9 because you are careful to keep all these commands I am giving you today, by loving the Lord your God and always walking in His ways—then you are to add three more cities for yourself in addition to these three. 10 Do this so innocent blood will not be shed in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and so you will not be guilty of bloodshed.
11 “But if a man hates his neighbour, lies in wait for him, attacks him and strikes him mortally, so he dies, and then flees to one of these cities, 12 then the elders of his own city shall send for him and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. 13 You must not pity him; you must purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that it may go well with you.
14 “You must not move your neighbour’s boundary marker, which your forefathers set up at the start of the inheritance you will receive in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.
15 “A single witness will not suffice to convict a person of any crime or sin that he has committed. The matter must be established on the evidence of two or three witnesses.
16 “If a malicious witness testifies against a man to accuse him of wrongdoing, 17 then both men in the dispute are to stand in the presence of the Lord before the priests and the judges who are in office at that time. 18 The judges must make a thorough investigation, and if the witness turns out to be a liar, and he has testified falsely against his brother, 19 then you must do to the false witness just as he had intended to do to his brother. So you must purge the evil from among you. 20 Then everyone else will hear and be afraid, and never again will such an evil thing be done among you. 21 You must show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”