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you shall set apart three cities for you in the midst of your land that Yahweh your God [is] giving to you to take possession of it.
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You shall prepare the roads for yourselves, and you shall divide the regions of your land into thirds that Yahweh your God gives you as a possession, so that {it will be available for any manslayer to flee there}.
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"Now this [is] the case of the manslayer who may flee there and live [there] who has killed his neighbor {unintentionally}, and he did not hate him {previously}.
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{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.
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[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}.
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Therefore I [am] commanding you, {saying}, 'You shall set apart three cities.'
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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,
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[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.
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[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.
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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,
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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.