Deuteronomy 19:1-10

The Voice

19 Moses: When the Eternal your God has destroyed the nations whose land He’s going to give you, when you’ve driven them out and have settled in their cities and are living in their houses, ^2-3 then designate three cities of refuge for yourselves in the land He is giving you to live in. Divide your territory into three parts, locate one city centrally in each part, and measure the roads to each of them. That way a person who kills someone accidentally can escape to one of these cities and be safe from revenge.

⁴ This is the kind of person I’m talking about: someone who kills a friend unintentionally, when there was no grudge between them, ⁵ such as when two friends go into the forest together to chop wood, and one of them swings an ax to cut a tree, and the ax head slips off the handle, hits his friend, and kills him. A person such as he can flee to one of these cities and be safe from revenge. ⁶ Otherwise, if the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too great, one of the relatives of the friend who was killed is going to feel honor-bound to avenge the dead man’s blood, and he’ll catch up with him and kill him while he’s still furious about his relative’s death. This wouldn’t be right because the man slaughterer didn’t deserve the death sentence. There was no grudge between these friends—the death was accidental. ⁷ That’s why I’m commanding you to designate these three cities for yourselves. ^8-9 Now if you carefully obey the command I’m giving you today, to love the Eternal your God and always do as He wishes, then He will expand your territory as He promised your ancestors; He’ll give you all the land He told your ancestors He’d give them. If that happens, then designate three more cities for yourselves, besides the first three. ¹⁰ That way no innocent blood will be shed in the land He is giving you to live in, and as a nation you won’t have any bloodguilt just because a city of refuge was too far away.