Numbers 35

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses on the west of Moab, by the Jordan near Jericho. He said, 2 “Give orders to the children of Israel that they are to give the Levites towns to live in out of the land they receive, and they are to give the Levites the open land around those towns. 3 The towns are to be for them to live in, and the open land is to be for their cattle and all their animals. 4 And the open land of the towns you give the Levites is to reach three thousand feet out from the town wall, all the way around. 5 And you are to measure outside the town three thousand feet on the east side, three thousand feet on the south side, three thousand feet on the west side and three thousand feet on the north side; and the town is to be in the middle of it. This is to be the open land of their towns. [a] 6 And of the towns you give the Levites, six are to be cities of refuge, which you are to give for a killer to flee to; and besides those, forty-two towns. 7 You are to give the Levites forty-eight towns in all, with their open land. 8 And as for the towns you give out of the holding of the children of Israel: from those who have much, give much, and from those who have less, give less. Each tribe is to give some of its towns to the Levites in proportion to the inheritance it receives.”

9 And the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, 10 “Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: You are to cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan. 11 And you are to set aside towns for yourselves; they are to be cities of refuge for you, for a killer to flee to — anyone who has killed a person without meaning to. [b] 12 And the towns are to be places of refuge for you from the relative who avenges the blood, so that the killer does not die before he has stood in front of the gathering for judgment. [c] 13 And the towns you set aside, the six towns, are to be places of refuge for you. 14 You are to set aside three towns on the other side of the Jordan, and three towns in the land of Canaan. 15 They are to be a place of refuge for the children of Israel, and for the newcomer, and for anyone living among you; these towns are to be a place of refuge for anyone to flee to who has killed a person without meaning to.

16 But if he struck him with an iron tool and the man died, he is a killer; the killer is certainly to be put to death. 17 And if he struck him with a stone in his hand, of a kind that can kill a man, and he died, he is a killer; the killer is certainly to be put to death. 18 And if he struck him with a wooden tool in his hand, of a kind that can kill, and he died, he is a killer; the killer is certainly to be put to death. 19 The relative who avenges the blood is himself to kill the killer; whenever he meets him, he is to kill him. 20 And if he pushed him out of hatred, or threw something at him from an ambush, and the man died, 21 or if he struck him with his hand in anger and the man died, the one who struck him is certainly to be put to death; he is a killer. The killer is certainly to be put to death; the relative who avenges the blood is to kill him when he meets him.

22 But if he pushed him suddenly and not out of hatred, or threw something at him but not from an ambush, 23 or struck him with any stone of a kind that can kill a man, without seeing him, and it fell on him and he died — and he was not his enemy and was not looking to harm him — 24 then the gathering is to judge between the one who struck the blow and the relative who avenges the blood, according to these judgments. 25 And the gathering is to rescue the killer from the relative who avenges the blood, and the gathering is to bring him back to his city of refuge, where he fled for safety; and he is to live there until the death of the great priest, the one they anointed with the holy oil. [d] 26 But if the killer ever goes outside the bounds of the town he fled to for refuge, 27 and the relative who avenges the blood finds him outside the bounds of his city of refuge, and the avenging relative kills the killer, he is not guilty. 28 For he should have stayed in the city of refuge until the great priest died; and after the death of the great priest the killer may go back to the land he holds. 29 And these are to be a ruling of judgment for you through your generations, everywhere you live.

30 Whoever kills a person — you are to put the killer to death on the word of witnesses; and one witness is not to testify against a soul so that he dies. 31 And you are not to accept a ransom for the life of a killer who deserves to die; he is certainly to be put to death. 32 And you are not to accept a ransom to let a man leave his city of refuge and live in the land again before the death of the great priest. 33 So you are not to defile the land you live in with killing; for this blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood shed on it except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 And you are not to make unclean the land you live in, in the middle of which I live; for I am the Lord, living in the middle of the children of Israel.”