But if a man willfully attacks his neighbor to kill him cunningly, ¹  you will take him even from my altar that he may die.

But if he does not do it with premeditation, ¹  but it happens by accident, ²  then I will appoint for you a place where he may flee.

then the community must judge between the slayer and the avenger of blood according to these decisions.

When Jehu came through the gate, she said, “Is everything all right, Zimri, murderer of his master?” ¹ 

Then when desire conceives, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is full grown, it gives birth to death.

But no human being can subdue the tongue; it is a restless ¹  evil, full of deadly poison.

And they must stand as your towns of refuge from the avenger in order that the killer may not die until he has stood trial before the community.

“But if he hits someone with an iron tool so that he dies, ¹  he is a murderer. The murderer must surely be put to death.

They assigned them Shechem (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter) in the hill country of Ephraim, Gezer,

from the tribe of Gad: Ramoth in Gilead (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter), Mahanaim,

The one who is tormented ¹  by the murder ²  of another will flee to the pit; ³  let no one support him.

“‘He gave it to be polished, to be grasped in the hand – the sword is sharpened, it is polished – giving it into the hand of the executioner.

Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, ¹  and kill him, ²  though this is not a capital case ³  since he did not hate him at the time of the accident.

The elders of his own city must send for him and remove him from there to deliver him over to the blood avenger ¹  to die.

from the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee (a city of refuge for one who committed manslaughter), Hammoth Dor, and Kartan, along with the grazing areas of each – a total of three cities.

Just as the Lord had announced, he rejected Judah because of all the sins which Manasseh had committed. ¹ 

“I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹ 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ¹  you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! ²  How often I have longed ³  to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ⁴  you would have none of it! ⁵ 

The community must deliver the slayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the community must restore him to the town of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there ¹  until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the consecrated oil.

Suppose he goes with someone else ¹  to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax ²  to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose ³  from the handle and strikes ⁴  his fellow worker ⁵  so hard that he dies. The person responsible ⁶  may then flee to one of these cities to save himself. ⁷