5. For example, when somebody goes with his neighbor into the forest to cut wood, and the iron head slips from the handle of the tool and strikes his neighbor and he dies, then he may flee to one of these cities, and so he may live.
6. He does this lest the avenger of blood might pursue after the killer, because he is hot with anger and he overtakes him, because it is a long distance to the city of refuge, and so he kills him, but he did not deserve a death sentence, because he was not hating him before.
7. Therefore I am commanding you, saying, ‘You shall set apart three cities.’
8. Then if Yahweh your God enlarges your territory just as he swore to your ancestors and gives to you all the land that he promised to give to your ancestors,
9. then if you diligently observe this entire commandment that I am commanding you today by loving Yahweh your God and by going in his ways at all times, then you shall add three more cities for yourselves to these three.
10. Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed in the midst of your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance and thereby bloodguilt would be on you.
11. But if someone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and murders him, and the murderer flees to one of these cities,
12. then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and they shall give him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall be put to death.
13. Your eye shall not take pity on him, and you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, so that good will be directed toward you.
14. “You shall not move the boundary marker of your neighbor that former generations set up on your property in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to take possession of it.