Deuteronomy chapter 19 laws concerning cities of refuge

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 and wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one

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