³ You shall prepare the roads^[a] for yourselves, and you shall divide the regions of your land into thirds that Yahweh your God gives you as a possession, so that it will be available for any manslayer to flee there.^[b]

⁴ “Now this is the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live there who has killed his neighbor unintentionally,^[c] and he did not hate him previously.^{[d] 5} For example,^[e] when somebody goes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and the iron head slips from the handle of the tool and strikes his neighbor and he dies, then he may flee to one of these cities, and so he may live.