1. The Lord your God is giving you land that belongs to other nations. He will destroy those nations. You will force them out and live in their cities and houses.
2. Then choose three cities. They must be in the middle of the land the Lord your God is giving you to own.
3. Build roads to those cities. And divide the land the Lord is giving you into three parts. Then someone who kills another person may run to these cities.
4. This is the rule for someone who kills another person. He may run to one of these cities to save his life. But he must have killed his neighbor without meaning to kill him. He did not hate his neighbor.
5. A man might go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood. The man swings his ax to cut down a tree. But the ax head flies off the handle. It hits his neighbor and kills him. The man who killed him may run to one of these cities to save his life.