¹⁰ “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,

² “Say to the Israelites: Appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses,^{(A) 3} so that anyone who kills a person without intent or by mistake may flee there; they shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood. ⁴ The slayer shall flee to one of these cities and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and explain the case to the elders of that city; then the fugitive shall be taken into the city and given a place and shall remain with them.^{(B) 5} And if the avenger of blood is in pursuit, they shall not give up the slayer because the neighbor was killed by mistake, there having been no enmity between them before.^{(C) 6} The slayer shall remain in that city until there is a trial before the congregation, until the death of the one who is high priest at the time; then the slayer may return home, to the town in which the deed was done.”^(D)

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)

⁹ for you have not yet come into the rest and the possession that the Lord your God is giving you.

² “Command the Israelites, and say to them: When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan, defined by its boundaries),^(A)

² “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you, the land shall observe a Sabbath for the Lord.^(A)

³⁴ “When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession, and I put a defiling disease in a house in the land of your possession,^(A)