Cities of Refuge
When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and live in their cities and in their houses,
you shall set apart three cities for yourself in the midst of your land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess it.
You shall prepare the way for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land that the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance; and it shall be for every killer to flee there.
And this is the case of the killer who may flee there and live: whoever strikes down his neighbor without knowledge, not having hated him in time past —
as when a man goes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to fell the tree, and the iron slips off the wood and finds his neighbor, and he dies — he may flee to one of these cities and live.
Otherwise the avenger of blood might pursue the killer while his heart is hot, and overtake him because the way is long, and strike him down mortally — though there was no judgment of death for him, since he had not hated him in time past.
Therefore I am commanding you, saying: three cities you shall set apart for yourself.
And if the LORD your God enlarges your border, as he swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he spoke of giving to your fathers —
when you keep all this commandment that I am commanding you today, to do it, loving the LORD your God and walking in his ways all the days — then you shall add for yourself three more cities to these three,
so that innocent blood is not shed in the midst of your land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, and bloodguilt is not on you.
But if a man hates his neighbor, and lies in wait for him, and rises up against him, and strikes him down mortally so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,
then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and give him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall die.
Your eye shall not pity him; and you shall purge the blood of the innocent from Israel, and it shall go well for you.
You shall not move back your neighbor’s boundary marker, which the men of former times set, in your inheritance that you will inherit in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess it.
The Testimony of Two or Three Witnesses
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity or for any sin, in any sin that he sins; at the mouth of two witnesses or at the mouth of three witnesses shall a matter be established.
If a violent witness rises up against a man, to answer against him with rebellion,
then the two men who have the dispute shall stand before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.
And the judges shall inquire thoroughly; and look — if the witness is a lying witness, who has answered falsely against his brother,
then you shall do to him as he schemed to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
And those who remain shall hear and fear, and shall not again do such an evil thing as this in your midst.
And your eye shall not pity: soul for soul, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.