Deuteronomy 18:14-19:13

Complete Jewish Bible

(v) ¹⁴ For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, listen to soothsayers and diviners; but you, Adonai your God does not allow you to do this.

¹⁵ “Adonai will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay attention to him, ¹⁶ just as when you were assembled at Horev and requested Adonai your God, ‘Don’t let me hear the voice of Adonai my God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will die!’ ¹⁷ On that occasion Adonai said to me, ‘They are right in what they are saying. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I order him. ¹⁹ Whoever doesn’t listen to my words, which he will speak in my name, will have to account for himself to me.

²⁰ “‘But if a prophet presumptuously speaks a word in my name which I didn’t order him to say, or if he speaks in the name of other gods, then that prophet must die.’ ²¹ You may be wondering, ‘How are we to know if a word has not been spoken by Adonai?’ ²² When a prophet speaks in the name of Adonai, and the prediction does not come true — that is, the word is not fulfilled — then Adonai did not speak that word. The prophet who said it spoke presumptuously; you have nothing to fear from him.

19 “When Adonai your God cuts off the nations whose land Adonai your God is giving you, and you take their place and settle in their cities and houses, ² you are to set aside three cities for yourselves in your land that Adonai your God is giving you to possess. ³ Divide the territory of your land, which Adonai your God is having you inherit, into three parts; and prepare the roads, so that any killer can flee to these cities. ⁴ The killer who will live if he flees there is someone who has killed his fellow member of the community by mistake, who did not hate him in the past. ⁵ An example would be if a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood and takes a stroke with the axe to fell a tree, but the head of the axe flies off the handle, hits his neighbor and kills him. Then he is to flee to one of these cities and live there. ⁶ Otherwise the next-of-kin avenger, in the heat of his anger, may pursue the killer, overtake him because the distance [to the city of refuge] is long, and strike him dead — even though he didn’t deserve to die, inasmuch as he hadn’t hated him in the past. ⁷ This is why I am ordering you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

⁸ “If Adonai your God expands your territory, as he swore to your ancestors that he would, and gives you all the land he promised to give to your ancestors — ⁹ provided you keep and observe all these mitzvot I am giving you today, loving Adonai your God and always following his ways — then you are to add three more cities for yourselves, besides these three; ¹⁰ so that innocent blood will not be shed in the land Adonai your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus blood guilt be on you.

¹¹ “However, if someone hates his fellow member of the community, lies in wait for him, attacks him, strikes him a death blow, and then flees into one of these cities; ¹² then the leaders of his own town are to send and bring him back from there and hand him over to the next-of-kin avenger, to be put to death. ¹³ You are not to pity him. Rather, you must put an end to the shedding of innocent blood in Isra’el. Then things will go well with you.