The Bible

Deuteronomy Chapter 19

¹When Yahweh your God cuts off the nations whose land Yahweh your God is giving you, and you succeed them and live in their cities and in their houses, ²you are to set apart three cities for yourselves in the middle of your land, which Yahweh your God is giving you to possess. ³Prepare the road and divide the borders of your land, which Yahweh your God causes you to inherit, into three parts so every manslayer may have somewhere to flee. ⁴This is the case of the manslayer who can flee there to live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, and didn't hate him previously- ⁵like when a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to chop wood and his hand swings the axe to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and hits his neighbor so that he dies- he can flee to one of these cities and live. ⁶Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer, while hot anger is in his heart and overtake him, because the road is long, and strike him mortally, even though he was not worthy of death because he didn't previously hate him. ⁷Therefore I command you, saying, "set apart three cities for yourselves." ⁸If Yahweh your God enlarges your border, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land which he promised to give to your fathers; ⁹and if you keep all these commandments, which I command you today, and do them: to love Yahweh your God, and to always walk in his ways, then you'll add three more cities for yourselves, in addition to these [first] three. ¹⁰[This is so that] innocent blood won't be shed among your land which Yahweh your God is giving you for an inheritance, leaving blood [guilt] on you. ¹¹But if any man hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises up against him, strikes him mortally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities; ¹²then the elders of his city are to send and get him [from] there, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, so he may die. ¹³Your eye mustn't pity him, but you must purge the innocent blood from Israel that it may go well with you.

¹⁴Don't remove your neighbor's landmark, which they set long ago, in your inheritance which you'll inherit, in the land that Yahweh your God is giving you to possess.

¹⁵One witness mustn't rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin that he sins. A matter must be established at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses. ¹⁶If an unrighteous witness rises up against any man to testify against him of wrongdoing, ¹⁷then both the men, between whom there's a controversy, are to stand before Yahweh, before the priests and the judges [who are in office] at that time; ¹⁸and the judges are to make diligent inquiry; and look, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, ¹⁹then you are to do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. In this way you'll remove the evil from among you. ²⁰Those who remain will hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you. ²¹Your eyes must not pity. Life for life. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot.