¹ “Whoever strikes someone ²  so that he dies ³  must surely be put to death. ⁴ 

‘Cursed is the one who kills ¹  his neighbor in private.’ Then all the people will say, ‘Amen!’

He struck them down and defeated them. ¹  Then he went down and lived for a time in the cave in the cliff of Etam.

Then the king of Israel marched out and struck down the horses and chariots; he thoroughly defeated ¹  Syria.

It ¹  furiously struck down nations with unceasing blows. ²  It angrily ruled over nations, oppressing them without restraint. ³ 

But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain; ¹  even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done. ² 

¹ In those days, ²  when ³  Moses had grown up, he went out to his people ⁴  and observed ⁵  their hard labor, and he saw an Egyptian man attacking ⁶  a Hebrew man, one of his own people. ⁷ 

“‘If you walk in hostility against me ¹  and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction ²  seven times according to your sins.

But while the meat was still between their teeth, before they chewed it, ¹  the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague.

you must then designate some towns as towns of refuge for you, to which a person who has killed someone unintentionally may flee.

These six towns will be places of refuge for the Israelites, and for the foreigner, and for the settler among them, so that anyone who kills any person accidentally may flee there.

“Whoever kills any person, the murderer must be put to death by the testimony ¹  of witnesses; but one witness cannot ²  testify against any person to cause him to be put to death.

The judge ¹  may sentence him to forty blows, ²  but no more. If he is struck with more than these, you might view your fellow Israelite ³  with contempt.

Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, ¹  until you have perished.

The Lord routed ¹  them before Israel. Israel ²  thoroughly defeated them ³  at Gibeon. They chased them up the road to the pass ⁴  of Beth Horon and struck them down all the way to Azekah and Makkedah.

Joshua and the Israelites almost totally wiped them out, but some survivors did escape to the fortified cities. ¹ 

Anyone who accidentally kills someone can escape there; ¹  these cities will be a place of asylum from the avenger of blood.

Too bad for us! Who can deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all sorts of plagues in the desert!

Certainly if the army had eaten some of the enemies’ provisions that they came across today, would not the slaughter of the Philistines have been even greater?”

Now once again there was war. So David went out to fight the Philistines. He defeated them thoroughly ¹  and they ran away from him.