6 Otherwise the avenger of blood might, while he is angry, pursue the manslayer and overtake him (because the way is long) and kill him, even though he was not worthy of death (since he did not hate him previously).
7 Therefore, I command you, saying, “You shall set apart three cities for yourselves.”
8 If the Lord your God enlarges your borders as He promised your fathers, and gives you all the land which He promised to give to your fathers,
9 and if you will carefully keep all these commandments, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to always walk in His ways, then you must add three cities more for yourself, besides these three.
10 Then innocent blood will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, and blood guiltiness be on you.
11 But if any man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises up against him, and mortally strikes him, causing him to die, and flees to one of these cities,
12 then the elders of his city must send and fetch him from there, and deliver him to the hand of the avenger of blood, so that he may die.