⁶He does this lest the avenger of blood might pursue after the killer, because he is hot with anger^g and he overtakes him, because it is a long distance to the city of refuge, and so he kills him,^h but he did not deserve a death sentence,ⁱ because he was not hating him before.^j ⁷Therefore I am commanding you, saying,^k ‘You shall set apart three cities.’ ⁸Then if Yahweh your God enlarges your territory just as he swore to your ancestors^l and gives^m to you all the land that he promisedⁿ to give to your ancestors,^o ⁹then if you diligently observe this entire commandment^p that I am commanding you today^q by loving Yahweh your God and by going^r in his ways at all times,^s then you shall add three more cities for yourselves to these three. ¹⁰Do this so that innocent blood will not be shed^t in the midst of your land that Yahweh your God is giving to you as an inheritance and thereby bloodguilt would be on you.^u

¹¹But if someone hates^v his neighbor and lies in wait for him and rises up^w against him and murders him,^x and the murderer flees to one of these cities, ¹²then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and they shall give him into the hand of the avenger of blood, and he shall be put to death.

Read in Logos

Footnotes

gLiterally “is hot his heart”
hLiterally “he strikes him down as to his life/soul”
iLiterally “for him there was not a judgment of death”
jLiterally “from yesterday and the day before”
kLiterally “to say”
lOr “fathers”
mHebrew “will give”
nLiterally “spoke”
oOr “fathers”
pLiterally “if you observe all of the commandment the this to do it”
qLiterally “the day”
rOr “walking”
sLiterally “all of the days”
tHebrew “is not shed”
uHebrew “shall be on you,” but conditional sense of imperfect is clear
vHebrew “is hating”
wOr “gets up”
xLiterally “and strikes him mortally with regard to his life and he dies”