Deuteronomy 19:3-5

International Standard Version

³ Build roads throughout the land that the Lord your God is providing as an inheritance, and then divide it into three districts so that any killer may flee there.

⁴ “Now this is the situation for any killer who flees there to live: suppose he strikes his friend unwittingly, not having hated him previously. ⁵ For instance,^[a] he may have accompanied his friend to go to a forest to cut trees. Then he swung his axe to cut some wood, but the ax head flew off the handle^[b] and hit^[c] his friend, so that he died. The killer^[d] may flee to one of these cities to live.