“If someone slain is found in the land that Yahweh your God is giving to you to take possession of it and is lying in the field, and it is not known who killed him,^a ²then your elders and your judges shall go out and shall measure the distance to the cities that are around the slain one. ³And then^b the nearest city to the slain one, the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd that has not been worked with in the field, that has not pulled a yoke, ⁴and the elders of that city shall bring the heifer down to a wadi that flows with water all year^c and that has not been plowed and has not been sown; then there they shall break the neck of the heifer in the wadi.^d ⁵Then the priests, the descendants^e of Levi, shall come near, for Yahweh your God has chosen them to bless in the name of Yahweh, and every legal dispute and every case of assault will be subject to their ruling.^f ⁶And all of the elders of that city nearest to the slain person shall wash their hands over the heifer with the broken neck in the wadi.^g ⁷And they shall declare, and they shall say, ‘Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see what was done. ⁸Forgive your people, Israel, whom you redeemed, Yahweh, and do not allow^h the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of your people Israel, and let them be forgiven with regard to blood.’ ⁹And so you shall purge the innocent blood from your midst, because you must do the right thing in the eyes of Yahweh.

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Footnotes

aLiterally “struck/smote him”
bLiterally “And it will happen”
cLiterally “an ever-flowing wadi”
dLiterally “they shall break there the neck with respect to the heifer in the ever-flowing wadi”; the Hebrew verb carries the meaning “to break the neck of”
eOr “sons”
fLiterally “on their mouth”
gA valley that is dry most of the year, but contains a stream during the rainy season
hLiterally “place/put”