1 If someone is found slain in the land which the Lord your God gives you to possess, lying in the field, and it isn’t known who has struck him;
2 then your elders and your judges shall come out, and they shall measure to the cities which are around him who is slain.
3 It shall be that the elders of the city which is nearest to the slain man shall take a heifer of the herd, which hasn’t been worked with, and which has not drawn in the yoke.
4 The elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a valley with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley.
5 The priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the Lord your God has chosen to minister to him, and to bless in the Lord’s name; and according to their word shall every controversy and every assault be decided.
6 All the elders of that city, who are nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley.
7 They shall answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, neither have our eyes seen it.