Numbers 35:22-29

Christian Standard Bible

²² “But if anyone suddenly pushes a person without hostility or throws any object at him without malicious intent ²³ or without looking drops a stone that could kill a person and he dies, but he was not his enemy and didn’t intend to harm him, ²⁴ the assembly is to judge between the person who kills someone and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances. ²⁵ The assembly is to protect the one who kills someone from the avenger of blood. Then the assembly will return him to the city of refuge he fled to, and he must live there until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.^(A)

²⁶ “If the one who kills someone ever goes outside the border of the city of refuge he fled to, ²⁷ and the avenger of blood finds him outside the border of his city of refuge and kills him, the avenger will not be guilty of bloodshed, ²⁸ for the one who killed a person was supposed to live in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. Only after the death of the high priest may the one who has killed a person return to the land he possesses. ²⁹ These instructions will be a statutory ordinance for you throughout your generations wherever you live.