¹⁴ Three towns must be in Canaan and three towns must be on the other side of the Jordan River. ¹⁵ Those six towns will be safe places for Israelites and for foreign people who live among them. Anyone who has killed another person may run to one of these towns and be safe there. But they will only be safe if they did not mean to kill the other person.

¹⁶ Murderers are different. You must kill a murderer. Maybe someone hits another person with a heavy iron tool. If the person dies, the murderer must also die.