Study Desk

then you shall select for yourselves cities to be your cities of refuge, so that the one who commits manslaughter by killing a person unintentionally may flee there.

'The cities shall serve you as a refuge from the avenger, so that the one who commits manslaughter does not die until he stands before the congregation for trial.

'So the cities which you are to provide shall be six cities of refuge for you.

'You shall provide three cities across the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan; they are to be cities of refuge.

'These six cities shall be a refuge for the sons of Israel, for the stranger, and for the foreign resident among them; so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.

'The blood avenger himself shall put the murderer to death; he himself shall put him to death when he meets him.

or if he struck him with his hand with hostility, and as a result he died, the one who struck him must be put to death; he is a murderer. The blood avenger shall put the murderer to death when he meets him.

then the congregation shall judge between the one who fatally struck the victim and the blood avenger in accordance with these ordinances.

'And the congregation shall save the one who committed manslaughter from the hand of the blood avenger, and the congregation shall return him to his city of refuge to which he fled; and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.

'These things shall be a statutory ordinance for you throughout your generations in all your dwelling places.

'If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the testimony of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness.

'Moreover, you shall not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is condemned to death, but he must be put to death.

'And you shall not accept a ransom for one who has fled to his city of refuge, so that he may return to live in the land before the death of the priest.

'So you shall not defile the land in which you live; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

'So you shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the LORD am dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel.'"

"So no inheritance of the sons of Israel will be transferred from tribe to tribe, for the sons of Israel shall each retain possession of the inheritance of the tribe of his fathers.

"And every daughter who comes into possession of an inheritance of any tribe of the sons of Israel shall marry one of the family of the tribe of her father, so that the sons of Israel may each possess the inheritance of his fathers.

"So no inheritance will be transferred from one tribe to another tribe, for the tribes of the sons of Israel shall each retain possession of its own inheritance."

'You are not to show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You are not to be afraid of any person, for the judgment is God's. The case that is too difficult for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.'

'Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers,