1“When יהוה your Elohim cuts off the nations whose land יהוה your Elohim is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

2separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you to possess.

3“Prepare a way for yourself, and divide into three parts the border of your land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you to inherit, that anyone who killed someone shall flee there.

4“And this is the matter of the one who killed someone who flees there and live: He who smites his neighbour unintentionally, not having hated him in time past,

5even he who goes to the forest with his neighbour to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbour so that he dies – let him flee to one of these cities and live,

6lest the revenger of blood, while his displeasure is hot, pursue the one who killed someone and overtake him, because the way is long, and shall smite him, though he was not worthy of death, since he had not hated him before.

7“Therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘Separate three cities for yourself.’

8“And if יהוה your Elohim enlarges your border, as He swore to your fathers, and has given you the land which He promised to give to your fathers –

9when you guard all this command to do it, which I am commanding you today, to love יהוה your Elohim and to walk in His ways all the days – then you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three,

10so that innocent blood is not shed in the midst of your land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you as an inheritance, or blood-guilt shall be upon you.

11“But when anyone hates his neighbour, and shall lie in wait for him and rise against him and smite the life from him so that he dies, then he shall flee to one of these cities,

12and the elders of his city shall send and bring him from there, and give him into the hand of the revenger of blood, and he shall die.

13“Your eye shall not pardon him, but you shall purge the blood of innocent blood from Yisra’ĕl, so that it might be well with you.

14“Do not remove your neighbour’s boundary, which those in the past have set, in your inheritance which you inherit in the land that יהוה your Elohim is giving you to possess.

15“One witness does not rise up against a man concerning any crookedness or any sin that he commits. At the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses a matter is established.

16“When a malicious witness rises up against any man to accuse him of turning aside,

17then both men who have the dispute shall stand before יהוה, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days.

18“And the judges shall diligently search and see if the witness is a false witness, who has falsely accused his brother,

19then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his brother. Thus you shall purge the evil from your midst.

20“And let the rest hear and fear, and never again do this evil matter in your midst.

21“And let your eye not pardon, life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.