Chapter 35
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The cities that you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge that you give for the manslayer to flee to, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities.
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All the cities that you give to the Levites: forty-eight cities, them and their pasturelands.
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And the cities that you shall give as a holding for the sons of Israel—from the many you shall give more, and from the few you shall give less—each according to the portion of his inheritance that they shall inherit from his cities to the Levites.
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And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:
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Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan,
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And you shall designate for yourselves cities, cities of refuge; they shall be for you, and one shall flee there, a murderer, a striker of nephesh unintentionally.
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And they will be to you the cities for refuge from the go'el, and the rotsach shall not die until they stand before the edah for mishpat.
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The cities that you give shall be six cities of refuge for you.
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You shall give the three cities beyond the Jordan, and you shall give the three cities in the land of Canaan; they shall be cities of refuge.
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To the sons of Israel and to the stranger and to the resident in their midst these six cities shall be for refuge for the one fleeing there, every striker of a vital life force in inadvertent error.
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And if with any iron tool he struck him and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.
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And if with a hand stone—one by which one dies—he struck him and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.
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Or with a wooden hand vessel, by which he struck him and he died—he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death.
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The blood kinsman-redeemer—he will cause the murderer to die; when he encounters him, he will cause him to die.
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If in hatred he pushes him or throws something at him by lying in wait, and he dies,
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or in enmity struck him with his hand and he caused death—death he shall be put to death; the striker murder he is. The blood redeemer shall put to death the murder when he encounters him.
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And if suddenly, without enmity, he pushed or threw any vessel upon him without lying in wait.
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or with any stone with which he dies by it without seeing, and it fell on him and he died, and he was not an enemy to him and not seeking his moral evil.
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And the congregation shall judge between the striker and the blood-redeemer over these justices.
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And the congregation will rescue the manslayer from the hand of the blood-redeemer, and the congregation will return him to his city of refuge where he fled there, and he will dwell in it until the death of the great priest whom one anointed with the anointing oil of the holy things.
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If the murderer goes out from the border of his city of refuge to which he has fled,
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And if they find the blood avenger outside at the border of his city of refuge, and the blood avenger murdered the manslayer; no blood was to him.
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because in his city of refuge he shall dwell until the death of the great priest, and after the death of the great priest the manslayer shall return to the land of his held possession.
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And these things shall be to you as a statute of judgment for your generations in all your dwelling places.
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Every striker of a vital life force, by the mouth of witnesses, shall murder the murderer, but one witness shall not answer against a vital life force to death.
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And you shall not take ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, for he shall surely be put to death.
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And do not take ransom for a fugitive who has fled to his city of refuge, so that he may return to dwell in the land until the death of the priest.
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Do not defile the land in which you are, for blood defiles the land, and the land has no atonement for the blood that was shed in it except by the blood of the ones who shed it.
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Do not defile the land in which you are dwelling, in which I dwell in its midst, for I, the LORD, dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel.