Dual Panel1THE LORD spoke to Moses in the lowlands of Moab by the Jordan near Jericho. He said:
2“Tell the Israelites to set aside towns in their holdings as homes for the Levites, and give them also the common land surrounding the towns.
3They are to live in the towns, and keep their animals, their herds, and all their livestock on the common land.
4The land of the towns which you give the Levites will extend from the centre of the town outwards for a thousand cubits in each direction.
5Starting from the town the eastern boundary will measure two thousand cubits, the southern two thousand, the western two thousand, and the northern two thousand, with the town in the centre. They will have this as the common land adjoining their towns.
6“When you give the Levites their towns, six of them are to be cities of refuge, in which the homicide may take sanctuary; and you are to give them forty-two other towns.
7The total number of towns to be given to the Levites, each with its common land, is forty-eight.
8When you set aside these towns out of the territory of the Israelites, you should allot more from a larger tribe and less from a smaller; each tribe must give towns to the Levites in proportion to the portion assigned to it.”
9The LORD told Moses
10to say to the Israelites: “When you cross the Jordan into Canaan,
11you are to designate certain cities to be places of refuge, in which the homicide who has inadvertently killed a man may take sanctuary.
12These cities will be places of refuge from the dead man's next-of-kin, so that the homicide is not put to death without a trial before the community.
13The cities appointed as places of refuge are to be six in number,
14three east of the Jordan and three in Canaan.
15These six cities will be places of refuge, so that any man who has taken life inadvertently, whether he be Israelite, resident alien, or temporary settler, may take sanctuary in one of them.
16“If anyone strikes his victim with anything made of iron, and he dies, then he is a murderer: the murderer must be put to death.
17If a man has a stone in his hand capable of causing death and strikes another man and he dies, he is a murderer: the murderer must be put to death.
18If a man has a wooden thing in his hand capable of causing death, and strikes another man and he dies, he is a murderer: the murderer must be put to death.
19The dead man's next-of-kin is to put the murderer to death; he is to put him to death because he attacked his victim.
20If the homicide sets upon a man openly and deliberately or aims a missile at him of set purpose and he dies,
21or if in enmity he falls upon him with his bare hands and he dies, then the assailant must be put to death; he is a murderer. The next-of-kin is to put the murderer to death because he attacked his victim.
22“If the homicide has attacked anyone on the spur of the moment, not being his enemy,
23or has hurled a missile at him not of set purpose, or if without looking he has thrown a stone capable of causing death and it hits someone, then if that person dies, provided the attacker was not his enemy and was not harming him of set purpose,
24the community is to judge between the attacker and the next-of-kin according to these rules.
25The community must protect the homicide from the vengeance of the kinsman and take him back to the city of refuge where he had taken sanctuary. He must stay there till the death of the duly anointed high priest.
26If the homicide ever goes beyond the boundaries of the city where he has taken sanctuary,
27and the next-of-kin finds him outside and kills him, then the next-of-kin is not guilty of murder.
28The homicide must remain in the city of refuge till the death of the high priest; after the death of the high priest he may go back to his own holding.
29These will be for you legal precedents for all time wherever you live.
30“The homicide may be put to death as a murderer only on the testimony of witnesses; the testimony of a single witness is not enough to bring him to his death.
31You should not accept payment for the life of a homicide guilty of a capital offence; he must be put to death.
32You should not accept a payment from a man who has taken sanctuary in a city of refuge, allowing him to go back before the death of the high priest and live at large.
33You must not defile your land by bloodshed. Blood defiles the land; no expiation can be made on behalf of the land for blood shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it.
34You must not make the land which you inhabit unclean, the land in which I dwell; for I, the LORD, dwell among the Israelites.”