And this is the case of the manslayer, who shall flee there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor unintentionally, whom he hated not in time past;
Then said she, I pray you, let the king remember the LORD your God, that you would not allow the revengers of blood to destroy any more, lest they destroy my son. And he said, As the LORD lives, there shall not one hair of your son fall to the earth.
And moreover in time past, even when Saul was king, you were he that led out and brought in Israel: and the LORD your God said unto you, You shall feed my people Israel, and you shall be ruler over my people Israel.
For Tophet was ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he has made it deep and large: its pyre is fire with much wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of brimstone, does kindle it.
You shall prepare you a way, and divide the territory of your land, which the LORD your God gives you to inherit, into three parts, that every manslayer may flee there.
As when a man goes into the wood with his neighbor to hew wood, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle, and strikes his neighbor, that he dies; he shall flee unto one of those cities, and live:
Lest the avenger of blood pursue the manslayer, while his anger is hot, and overtake him, because the way is long, and slay him; whereas he was not worthy of death, inasmuch as he hated the victim not in time past.
That the slayer might flee there, who should kill his neighbor unintentionally, and hated him not in times past; and that fleeing unto one of these cities he might live:
Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go: for you have not passed this way before.