1 “When the Lord your God ahas cut off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,
2ayou shall separate three cities for yourself in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess.
3 You shall prepare roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, that any manslayer may flee there.
4 “And athis is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor1 unintentionally, not having hated him in time past—
5 as when aman goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, 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 so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live;
6alest the avenger of blood, while his anger is hot, pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and kill him, though he was not deserving of death, since he had not hated the victim in time past.
7 Therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall separate three cities for yourself.’
8 “Now if the Lord your God aenlarges your territory, as He swore to byour fathers, and gives you the land which He promised to give to your fathers,
9 and if you keep all these commandments and do them, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and to walk always in His ways, athen you shall add three more cities for yourself besides these three,
10alest innocent blood be shed in the midst of your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, and thus guilt of bloodshed be upon you.
11 “But aif anyone hates his neighbor, lies in wait for him, rises against him and strikes him mortally, so that he dies, and he flees to one of these cities,
12 then the elders of his city shall send and bring him from there, and deliver him over to the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.
13aYour eye shall not pity him, bbut you shall put away theguiltof innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with you.
Property Boundaries
14a“You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.
The Law Concerning Witnesses
15a“One witness shall not rise against a man concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or three witnesses the matter shall be established.
DEUTERONOMY, the second law, a title which plainly shows what is the object of this book, namely, a recapitulation of the law. It was given in the form of public addresses to the people; and as Moses spoke in the prospect of his speedy removal, he enforced obedience to it by many forcible appeals to the Israelites, concerning their long and varied experience both of the mercies and the judgments of God. The minute notices of the heathen people with whom they had come in contact, but who afterward disappeared from the pages of history, as well as the accounts of the fertility and products of Canaan, and the counsels respecting the conquest of that country, fix the date of this book and the time of its composition by the hand of Moses. The close, however, must have been added by another; and, indeed, it is supposed by some to have formed the original preface to the Book of Joshua.
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