Deuteronomy 19 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

Laws Concerning Cities of Refuge

(Num 35:9–28; Jos 20:1–9 )

Deu 19:1“When the LORD your God cuts off the nations whose land the LORD your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses,

Deu 19:2

Deu 19:2you shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

Deu 19:3

Deu 19:3You shall measure the distances[fn] and divide into three parts the area of the land that the LORD your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

Deu 19:4

Deu 19:4“This is the provision for the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past—

Deu 19:5

Deu 19:5as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live,

Deu 19:6

Deu 19:6lest the avenger of blood in hot anger pursue the manslayer and overtake him, because the way is long, and strike him fatally, though the man did not deserve to die, since he had not hated his neighbor in the past.

Deu 19:7

Deu 19:7Therefore I command you, You shall set apart three cities.

Deu 19:8

Deu 19:8And if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as he has sworn to your fathers, and gives you all the land that he promised to give to your fathers—

Deu 19:9

Deu 19:9provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the LORD your God and by walking ever in his ways—then you shall add three other cities to these three,

Deu 19:10

Deu 19:10lest innocent blood be shed in your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, and so the guilt of bloodshed be upon you.

Deu 19:11

Deu 19:11“But if anyone hates his neighbor and lies in wait for him and attacks him and strikes him fatally so that he dies, and he flees into one of these cities,

Deu 19:12

Deu 19:12then the elders of his city shall send and take him from there, and hand him over to the avenger of blood, so that he may die.

Deu 19:13

Deu 19:13Your eye shall not pity him, but you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood[fn] from Israel, so that it may be well with you.

Property Boundaries

Deu 19:14

Deu 19:14“You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.

Laws Concerning Witnesses

Deu 19:15

Deu 19:15“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.

Deu 19:16

Deu 19:16If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing,

Deu 19:17

Deu 19:17then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days.

Deu 19:18

Deu 19:18The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely,

Deu 19:19

Deu 19:19then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil[fn] from your midst.

Deu 19:20

Deu 19:20And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.

Deu 19:21

Deu 19:21Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

See the ESV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

ESV Footnotes

(19:3)

Hebrew road

(19:13)

Or the blood of the innocent

(19:19)

Or evil person

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Deuteronomy Chapter 19 — Additional Translations: