¹⁰ “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ^(A)‘When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

² “Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ^(A)‘Appoint^[a] for yourselves cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, ³ that the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood. ⁴ And when he flees to one of those cities, and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and ^[b]declares his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city as one of them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. ^5 (B)Then if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. ⁶ And he shall dwell in that city ^(C)until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.’ ”

Three Cities of Refuge^(A)

19 “When the Lord your God ^(B)has cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, ^2 (C)you shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

⁹ for as yet you have not come to the ^(A)rest^[a] and the inheritance which the Lord your God is giving you.

² “Command the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into ^(A)the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance—the land of Canaan to its boundaries.

² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘When you come into the land which I give you, then the land shall ^(A)keep a sabbath to the Lord.

^34 (A)“When you have come into the land of Canaan, which I give you as a possession, and ^(B)I put the ^[a]leprous plague in a house in the land of your possession,