1
"When Yahweh your God has {exterminated} the nations [concerning whom] Yahweh your God [is] giving to you their land, and you have dispossessed them, and you have settled in their towns and in their houses,
2
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.
3
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}.
4
"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}.
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.