Cities of refuge
1When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations whose land Yahweh your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and settle in their cities and houses, 2set apart three cities for yourself in the land Yahweh your God is giving you to possess. 3Build roads to them, and divide into three parts the territory of the land Yahweh your God gives you as an inheritance, so that anyone who kills a person may flee there. 4This is the case of one who kills a person and may flee there and live: someone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without having hated him before — 5for instance, a man who goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as his hand swings the axe to fell a tree, the head flies off the handle and strikes his neighbor, and he dies — that man may flee to one of these cities and live. 6Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in the heat of his rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and strike him fatally, though he does not deserve to die, since he did not hate his neighbor before. 7That is why I command you: set apart three cities for yourself. 8If Yahweh your God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land he promised to give them — 9because you carefully keep this whole commandment I am giving you today, loving Yahweh your God and always walking in his ways — then add three more cities to these three, 10so that innocent blood is not shed in your land, which Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, bringing bloodguilt upon you.
A deliberate killer, no refuge
11But if someone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, attacks him, strikes him fatally, and then flees to one of these cities, 12the elders of his city are to send for him, bring him back from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to be put to death. 13Show him no pity. You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you. 14Do not move your neighbor’s boundary stone, set up by those who came before you, in the inheritance you receive in the land Yahweh your God is giving you to possess.
Two or three witnesses
15A single witness is not enough to convict a person of any crime or wrong, whatever it may be. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. 16If a malicious witness testifies against someone, accusing him of a crime, 17the two people in the dispute must stand before Yahweh, before the priests and judges in office at that time, 18and the judges must investigate thoroughly. If the witness turns out to be a liar, giving false testimony against his brother, 19then do to him what he intended to do to his brother. You must purge the evil from among you. 20The rest of the people will hear and be afraid, and such an evil thing will never again be done among you. 21Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
