Deuteronomy 19:3-5

Christian Standard Bible Anglicised

³ You are to determine the distances^[a] and divide the land the Lord your God is granting you as an inheritance into three regions, so that anyone who commits manslaughter can flee to these cities.^[b]

⁴ ‘Here is the law concerning a case of someone who kills a person and flees there to save his life, having killed his neighbour accidentally without previously hating him: ⁵ If, for example, he goes into the forest with his neighbour to cut timber, and his hand swings the axe to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes his neighbour so that he dies, that person may flee to one of these cities and live.