21“Suppose someone is found murdered in a field in the land that the Lord your God is going to give you, and you do not know who killed him. ²Your leaders and judges are to go out and measure the distance from the place where the body was found to each of the nearby towns. ³Then the leaders of the town nearest to where the body was found are to select a young cow that has never been used for work. ⁴They are to take it down to a spot near a stream that never runs dry and where the ground has never been ploughed or planted, and there they are to break its neck. ⁵The levitical priests are to go there also, because they are to decide every legal case involving violence. The Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name. ⁶Then all the leaders from the town nearest the place where the murdered person was found are to wash their hands over the cow ⁷and say, ‘We did not murder this person, and we do not know who did it. ⁸Lord, forgive your people Israel, whom you rescued from Egypt. Forgive us and do not hold us responsible for the murder of an innocent person.’ ⁹And so, by doing what the Lord requires, you will not be held responsible for the murder.

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