1When YHWH your God cuts off the nations whose land YHWH your God is giving to you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,
2three cities you shall separate for yourself in the midst of your land which YHWH your God is giving to you to possess it.
3You shall prepare for yourself the way, and you shall divide into three the border of your land which YHWH your God gives you to inherit, and it shall be for every manslayer to flee there.
4And this is the matter of the manslayer who shall flee there and live: whoever strikes his neighbor without knowledge, and he did not hate him from yesterday and the day before;
5and who comes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and his hand swings with the axe to cut down the tree, and the iron slips off from the wood and finds his neighbor and he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live;
6lest the redeemer of blood pursue after the manslayer, because his heart is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him—a soul (nephesh)—though he has no judgment (mishpat) of death, since he did not hate him from yesterday and the day before.
7Therefore I am commanding (tzivvah) you, saying, "Three cities you shall separate for yourself."
8And if YHWH your God enlarges your border, as He swore to your fathers, and gives to you all the land which He spoke to give to your fathers—
9if you keep all this commandment (mitzvah) to do it, which I am commanding (tzivvah) you today, to love YHWH your God and to walk in His ways all the days, then you shall add for yourself three more cities to these three;
10that innocent blood be not shed in the midst of your land which YHWH your God is giving to you as an inheritance, and blood be upon you.
11But if a man (ish) be hating his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises against him, and strikes him—a soul (nephesh)—and he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,
12then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and deliver him into the hand of the redeemer of blood, and he shall die.
13Your eye shall not pity him, and you shall burn away the blood of the innocent from Israel, and it shall be well with you.
14You shall not move back your neighbor's boundary, which the former ones set, in your inheritance which you inherit, in the land which YHWH your God is giving to you to possess it.
15One witness shall not rise up against a man (ish) for any iniquity or for any sin, in any sin that he sins; at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall a matter be established.
16If a witness of violence rise up against a man (ish), to testify against him of wrongdoing,
17then the two men (ish) who have the dispute shall stand before YHWH, before the priests and the judges who shall be in those days.
18And the judges shall inquire diligently, and behold, the witness is a false witness; he has testified falsely against his brother;
19then you shall do to him as he had purposed to do to his brother; so you shall burn away the evil from your midst.
20And those who remain shall hear and fear, and shall not do again according to this evil thing in your midst.
21And your eye shall not pity: soul (nephesh) for soul (nephesh), eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.