Numbers 35:22-34

“If, however, he impulsively pushes someone and there is no history of hard feelings, or he impetuously picks up something and throws it, or he accidentally drops a stone tool—a maul or hammer, say—and it hits and kills someone he didn’t even know was there, and there’s no suspicion that there was bad blood between them, the community is to judge between the killer and the avenger following these guidelines. It’s the task of the community to save the killer from the hand of the avenger—the community is to return him to his asylum-city to which he fled. He must stay there until the death of the High Priest who was anointed with the holy oil. But if the murderer leaves the asylum-city to which he has fled, and the avenger finds him outside the borders of his asylum-city, the avenger has a right to kill the murderer. And he’s not considered guilty of murder. “So it’s important that he stay in his asylum-city until the death of the High Priest. After the death of the High Priest he is free to return to his own place. * * * “These are the procedures for making judgments from now on, wherever you live. “Anyone who kills another may be executed only on the testimony of eyewitnesses. But no one can be executed on the testimony of only one witness. “Don’t accept bribe money in exchange for the life of a murderer. He’s guilty and deserves the death penalty. Put him to death. “And don’t accept bribe money for anyone who has fled to an asylum-city so as to permit him to go back and live in his own place before the death of the High Priest. “Don’t pollute the land in which you live. Murder pollutes the land. The land can’t be cleaned up of the blood of murder except through the blood of the murderer. “Don’t desecrate the land in which you live. I live here, too—I, GOD, live in the same neighborhood with the People of Israel.”

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