Personal Injuries

¹² “Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death.^{(A) 13} However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place^(B) I will designate. ¹⁴ But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately,^(C) that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.^(D)

Cities of Refuge^(A)

⁴¹ Then Moses set aside three cities east of the Jordan, ⁴² to which anyone who had killed a person could flee if they had unintentionally^(B) killed a neighbor without malice aforethought. They could flee into one of these cities and save their life. ⁴³ The cities were these: Bezer in the wilderness plateau, for the Reubenites; Ramoth^(C) in Gilead, for the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, for the Manassites.

Cities of Refuge^(A)

19 When the Lord your God has destroyed the nations whose land he is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their towns and houses,^{(B) 2} then set aside for yourselves three cities in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. ³ Determine the distances involved and divide into three parts the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that a person who kills someone may flee for refuge to one of these cities.

⁴ This is the rule concerning anyone who kills a person and flees there for safety—anyone who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without malice aforethought. ⁵ For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. ⁶ Otherwise, the avenger of blood^(C) might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbor without malice aforethought. ⁷ This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

⁸ If the Lord your God enlarges your territory,^(D) as he promised^(E) on oath to your ancestors, and gives you the whole land he promised them, ⁹ because you carefully follow all these laws I command you today—to love the Lord your God and to walk always in obedience to him^(F)—then you are to set aside three more cities. ¹⁰ Do this so that innocent blood^(G) will not be shed in your land, which the Lord your God is giving you as your inheritance, and so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.^(H)

¹¹ But if out of hate someone lies in wait, assaults and kills a neighbor,^(I) and then flees to one of these cities, ¹² the killer shall be sent for by the town elders, be brought back from the city, and be handed over to the avenger of blood to die. ¹³ Show no pity.^(J) You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood,^(K) so that it may go well with you.

² “Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses,

⁷ So they set apart Kedesh^(A) in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem^(B) in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba^(C) (that is, Hebron^(D)) in the hill country of Judah.^{(E) 8} East of the Jordan (on the other side from Jericho) they designated Bezer^(F) in the wilderness on the plateau in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead^(G) in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan^(H) in the tribe of Manasseh. ⁹ Any of the Israelites or any foreigner residing among them who killed someone accidentally^(I) could flee to these designated cities and not be killed by the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.^(J)

³ So, as the Lord had commanded, the Israelites gave the Levites the following towns and pasturelands out of their own inheritance:

²⁷ The Levite clans of the Gershonites were given: