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"When ADONAI your God cuts off the nations whose land ADONAI your God is giving you, and you take their place and settle in their cities and houses,
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you are to set aside three cities for yourselves in your land that ADONAI your God is giving you to possess.
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Divide the territory of your land, which ADONAI your God is having you inherit, into three parts; and prepare the roads, so that any killer can flee to these cities.
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The killer who will live if he flees there is someone who has killed his fellow member of the community by mistake, who did not hate him in the past.
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An example would be if a man goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood and takes a stroke with the axe to fell a tree, but the head of the axe flies off the handle, hits his neighbor and kills him. Then he is to flee to one of these cities and live there.
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Otherwise the next-of-kin avenger, in the heat of his anger, may pursue the killer, overtake him because the distance [to the city of refuge] is long, and strike him dead - even though he didn't deserve to die, inasmuch as he hadn't hated him in the past.
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This is why I am ordering you to set aside for yourselves three cities.
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"If ADONAI your God expands your territory, as he swore to your ancestors that he would, and gives you all the land he promised to give to your ancestors -
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provided you keep and observe all these mitzvot I am giving you today, loving ADONAI your God and always following his ways - then you are to add three more cities for yourselves, besides these three;
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so that innocent blood will not be shed in the land ADONAI your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus blood guilt be on you.
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"However, if someone hates his fellow member of the community, lies in wait for him, attacks him, strikes him a death blow, and then flees into one of these cities;