¹² The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, so that the slayer may not die until there is a trial before the congregation.^(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.^{(A) 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.^{(B) 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.”^(C)

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.^(A)

⁷ Now the whole family has risen against your servant. They say, ‘Give up the man who struck his brother, so that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he murdered, even if we destroy the heir as well.’ Thus they would quench my one remaining ember and leave to my husband neither name nor remnant on the face of the earth.”^(A)

⁹ These were the cities designated for all the Israelites and for the aliens residing among them, that anyone who killed a person without intent could flee there, so as not to die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until there was a trial before the congregation.^(A)

¹¹ “But if someone at enmity with another lies in wait and attacks and takes the life of that person and flees into one of these cities, ¹² then the elders of the killer’s city shall send to have the culprit taken from there and handed over to the avenger of blood to be put to death.

²⁴ then the congregation shall judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these ordinances,^{(A) 25} and the congregation shall rescue the slayer from the avenger of blood. Then the congregation shall send the slayer back to the original city of refuge. The slayer shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. ²⁶ But if the slayer shall at any time go outside the bounds of the original city of refuge ²⁷ and is found by the avenger of blood outside the bounds of the city of refuge and is killed by the avenger, no bloodguilt shall be incurred.

¹⁹ The avenger of blood is the one who shall put the murderer to death; when they meet, the avenger of blood shall execute the sentence.^(A)