1 “When יהוה your Elohim cuts off the nations whose land יהוה your Elohim is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,
2 separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you to possess.
3 “Prepare a way for yourself, and divide into three parts the border of your land which יהוה your Elohim is giving you to inherit, that anyone who killed someone shall flee there.
4 “And this is the matter of the one who killed someone who flees there and live: He who smites his neighbour unintentionally, not having hated him in time past,
5 even he who goes to the forest with his neighbour to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbour so that he dies – let him flee to one of these cities and live,
6 lest the revenger of blood, while his displeasure is hot, pursue the one who killed someone and overtake him, because the way is long, and shall smite him, though he was not worthy of death, since he had not hated him before.