Asylum Cities

⁹The Lord spoke further to Moses: ¹⁰Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ¹¹you shall provide yourselves with places to serve you as cities of refuge to which a manslayer who has killed a person unintentionally may flee. ¹²The cities shall serve you as a refuge from the avenger,^a so that the manslayer may not die unless he has stood trial before the assembly.

¹³The towns that you thus assign shall be six cities of refuge in all. ¹⁴Three cities shall be designated beyond the Jordan, and the other three shall be designated in the land of Canaan: they shall serve as cities of refuge. ¹⁵These six cities shall serve the Israelites and the resident aliens among them for refuge, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.

¹⁶Anyone, however, who strikes another with an iron object so that death results is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death. ¹⁷If he struck him with a stone tool that could cause death, and death resulted, he is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death. ¹⁸Similarly, if the object with which he struck him was a wooden tool that could cause death, and death resulted, he is a murderer; the murderer must be put to death. ¹⁹The blood-avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; it is he who shall put him to death upon encounter.

²⁰So, too, if he pushed him in hate or hurled something at him on purpose and death resulted, ²¹or if he struck him with his hand in enmity and death resulted, the assailant shall be put to death; he is a murderer. The blood-avenger shall put the murderer to death upon encounter.

²²But if he pushed him without malice aforethought or hurled any object at him unintentionally, ²³or inadvertently dropped upon him any deadly object of stone, and death resulted—though he was not an enemy of his and did not seek his harm—²⁴in such cases the assembly shall decide between the slayer and the blood-avenger. ²⁵The assembly shall protect the manslayer from the blood-avenger, and the assembly shall restore him to the city of refuge to which he fled, and there he shall remain until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the sacred oil. ²⁶But if the manslayer ever goes outside the limits of the city of refuge to which he has fled, ²⁷and the blood-avenger comes upon him outside the limits of his city of refuge, and the blood-avenger kills the man-slayer, there is no bloodguilt on his account. ²⁸For he must remain inside his city of refuge until the death of the high priest; after the death of the high priest, the manslayer may return to his land holding.

²⁹Such shall be your law of procedure throughout the ages in all your settlements.

³⁰If anyone kills a person, the manslayer may be executed only on the evidence of witnesses; the testimony of a single witness against a person shall not suffice for a sentence of death. ³¹You may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of a capital crime; he must be put to death. ³²Nor may you accept ransom in lieu of flight to a city of refuge, enabling one to return to live on his land before the death of the priest. ³³You shall not pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and the land can have no expiation for blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. ³⁴You shall not defile the land in which you live, in which I Myself abide, for I the Lord abide among the Israelite people.