Deuteronomy 19

But when the Lord your God destroys the nations whose land your God gives you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

you shall set apart for yourself three cities in the midst of your land which the Lord your God gives you.

Estimate for yourself the way, and divide into three parts the borders of your land which the Lord your God apportions to you, and there shall be a refuge there for every manslayer.

And this shall be the ordinance for the manslayer who flees there and shall live: whoever strikes his neighbor unintentionally, and he did not hate him before yesterday and before the third day;

And whoever goes with his neighbor into the wood to gather timber, and his hand is struck out with the axe as he cuts the tree, and the iron head, falling off from the wooden handle, hits his neighbor and he dies, this man shall flee to one of these cities and shall live;

lest the avenger of blood, pursuing after the one who killed, because his heart is inflamed, overtake him, if the way is long, and strike his life, and he die; yet for this man there is no judgment of death, because he did not hate him before yesterday and before the third day.

Therefore I command you this word, saying: Three cities you shall set apart for yourself.

But if the Lord your God enlarges your borders, as he swore to your fathers, and the Lord gives you all the land which he said he would give to your fathers,

if you listen so as to do all these commandments which I command you today, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways all the days, then you shall add for yourself three more cities to these three,

and innocent blood shall not be shed in your land which the Lord your God gives you as an allotment, and there shall not be among you one guilty of blood.

But if there is a man who hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up against him and strikes his life, and he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,

then the council of elders of his city shall send and take him from there and deliver him into the hands of the avenger of blood, and he shall die.

Your eye shall not spare him, and you shall purge the innocent blood from Israel, and it shall be well with you.

You shall not move the boundaries of your neighbor which your fathers set up, in your inheritance which you have inherited in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an allotment.

One witness shall not stand to testify against a man concerning any injustice or any offense or any sin which he may commit; by the mouth of two witnesses and by the mouth of three witnesses every matter shall be established.

But if an unjust witness stands up against a man, accusing him of impiety,

then the two men who have the dispute shall stand before the Lord and before the priests and before the judges who are in those days.

And the judges shall inquire diligently, and behold, if the witness is an unjust witness, he testified unjust things, he stood up against his brother,

then you shall do to him just as he maliciously intended to do to his brother, and you shall remove the evil from among your own selves.

And the rest, when they hear, shall fear and shall not again do according to this evil thing among you.

Your eye shall not spare him: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.