DEUTERONOMY 19

When Yehowah your God cuts off the nations whose land Yehowah your God gives you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and houses, 2 you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the midst of your land which Yehowah your God gives you to possess. 3 You shall prepare the roads, and divide into three the area of your land which Yehowah your God gives you to inherit, so that any manslayer may flee there.

4 And this is the case with the manslayer who flees there so that he may live. Whoever kills his neighbour unintentionally, and did not hate him in the past 5 (as when a man goes with his neighbour into a forest to fell trees, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the axe-head* slips from the wood, and hits his neighbour so that he dies), he may flee to one of these cities and save his life; 6 lest the avenger of blood pursues the manslayer while his heart is hot, and overtakes him because the way is long, and wounds him mortally, although he does not deserve to die, because he did not hate him in the past. 7 Therefore I command you, and say, You shall set three cities apart for yourselves. 8 And if Yehowah your God enlarges your border, as he has promised your fathers, and gives you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers, 9 because you are careful to keep all these commandments which I give you today, loving your God and always walking in his ways, then you shall add three other cities for yourselves, besides these three, 10 so that the blood of an innocent man may not be shed in the midst of your land which Yehowah your God gives you for an inheritance, and so that no blood-guilt should lie on you. * lit iron

11 But if any man hates his neighbour, and lies in wait for him, and attacks him, and wounds him mortally so that he dies, and the man flees into one of these cities, 12 then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood so that he may die. 13 Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, so that it may go well with you.

14 You shall not remove your neighbor's landmark, which men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will receive in the land which Yehowah your God gives you to possess.

15 A single witness shall not stand against a man for any. iniquity or sin, in any offence that he commits; only on the evidence of two Witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. 16 If a malicious witness stands against any man to accuse him of wrongdoing, 17 then both of the men concerned in the dispute shall stand before Yehowah, before the priests and the judges who hold office in those days. 18 Then the judges shall inquire diligently; and if the witness is a false witness, and has testified against his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother; so you shall purge this evil from your midst. 20 And those who remain shall hear, and fear, and do no such evil - among you any more. 21 And your eye shall not pity: there shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.