1 ¶ When the LORD your God has cut off the nations, whose land the LORD your God gives you, and you replace them, and dwell in their cities, and in their houses;

2 You shall set apart three cities in the midst of the land, which the LORD your God gives you as a possession.

3 You shall prepare the roads, and divide the territory of the land, which the LORD your God gives to you to inherit, into three parts, so that any manslayer may flee there.

4 And this is the provision for the manslayer, who may flee there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, having no hatred for him previously;

5 As when a man goes into the woods with his neighbor to chop wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle, and hits his neighbor, causing him to die; he shall flee to one of those cities, and live:

6 Otherwise the avenger of the blood will pursue the slayer, while he is angry, and overtake him, because the distance is great, and slay him; even though he was not worthy of death, because he did not hate him in the past.

7 Therefore I command you, saying, You shall set apart three cities for yourselves.

8 And if the LORD your God enlarges your borders, as he promised your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers;

9 Provided that you are careful to fully observe the commandment, that I am giving you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to walk ever in his ways; then you shall add three other cities for yourselves, in addition to these three:

10 So that innocent blood is not shed in the land, which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance, that no blood guilt may rest upon you.

11 But if any man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises up against him, and wounds him mortally so that he dies, and flees to one of these cities:

12 Then the elders of his city must send for him and take him from there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, so that he may die.

13 Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.

14 ¶ You must not move your neighbor’s property marker, set up by those who first divided the land which you shall inherit, the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess.

15 One witness shall not convict a man of any crime, or any wrong, in connection with any sin that he commits: a charge must be established on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

16 If a false witness rises up against any man to accuse him of wrongdoing;

17 Then both of the men involved in the dispute, shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges, who are officiating in those days;

18 And the judges shall make a thorough investigation: and if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely against his brother;

19 Then you shall do to him, what he wanted to have done to his brother: in that way you shall put away the evil from among you.

20 And those who remain will hear, and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.

21 Your eye must not pity the criminal; but it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.