Deuteronomy 19:1-10

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

Laws concerning the Cities of Refuge

19 “When the Lord your God has cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you and you have dispossessed them and settled in their towns and in their houses,^{(A) 2} you shall set apart three cities in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.^{(B) 3} You shall calculate the distances^[a] and divide into three regions the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any homicide can flee to one of them.

⁴ “Now this is the case of a homicide who might flee there and live, that is, someone who has killed another person unintentionally when the two had not been at enmity before.^{(C) 5} Suppose someone goes into the forest with another to cut wood, and when one of them swings the ax to cut down a tree, the head slips from the handle and strikes the other person, who then dies; the killer may flee to one of these cities and live. ⁶ But if the distance is too great, the avenger of blood in hot anger might pursue and overtake and put the killer to death, although a death sentence was not deserved, since the two had not been at enmity before.^{(D) 7} Therefore I command you: You shall set apart three cities.

⁸ “If the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors—and he will give you all the land that he promised your ancestors to give you, ⁹ provided you diligently observe this entire commandment that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and walking always in his ways—then you shall add three more cities to these three,^{(E) 10} so that the blood of an innocent person may not be shed in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, thereby bringing bloodguilt upon you.^(F)