Deuteronomy 19:5

New English Translation

Suppose he goes with someone else to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose from the handle and strikes his fellow worker so hard that he dies. The person responsible may then flee to one of these cities to save himself.

Cross References

2 Kings 6:4

So he went with them. When they arrived at the Jordan, they started cutting down trees.

Proverbs 27:12

A shrewd person sees danger and hides himself, but the naive keep right on going and suffer for it.

Isaiah 32:2

Each of them will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from a rainstorm; like streams of water in a dry region and like the shade of a large cliff in a parched land.

Numbers 35:25

The community must deliver the slayer out of the hand of the avenger of blood, and the community must restore him to the town of refuge to which he fled, and he must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the consecrated oil.

Deuteronomy 19:4

Now this is the law pertaining to one who flees there in order to live, if he has accidentally killed another without hating him at the time of the accident.

Deuteronomy 19:6

Otherwise the blood avenger will chase after the killer in the heat of his anger, eventually overtake him, and kill him, though this is not a capital case since he did not hate him at the time of the accident.