Study Desk

And Beth-nimrah and Beth-haran: walled towns and shut-in places for sheep.

And they went on from Alush, and put up their tents in Rephidim, where there was no drinking-water for the people.

And take the land for yourselves, for your resting-place: for to you I have given the land as your heritage.

And for your limit on the west you will have the Great Sea and its edge: this will be your limit on the west.

For the tribe of the children of Reuben, by their fathers' families, and the tribe of the children of Gad, by their fathers' families, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, have been given their heritage:

Give orders to the children of Israel to give to the Levites, from the heritage which is theirs, towns for themselves, with land on the outskirts of the towns.

These towns are to be their living-places, with land round them for their cattle and their food and all their beasts,

Three on the other side of Jordan and three in the land of Canaan, to be safe places for flight.

For the children of Israel and for the man from another country who is living among them, these six towns are to be safe places, where anyone causing the death of another through error may go in flight.

He whose right it is to give punishment for blood, may himself put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

If in his hate he put a sword through him, or waiting secretly for him sent a spear or stone at him, causing his death;

Or in hate gave him blows with his hand, causing death; he who gave the death-blow is to be put to death; he is a taker of life: he whose right it is to give punishment for blood may put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

Then let the meeting of the people be judge between the man responsible for the death and him who has the right of punishment for blood, acting by these rules:

And let the people keep the man responsible for the death safe from the hands of him who has the right of punishment for blood, and send him back to his safe town where he had gone in flight: there let him be till the death of the high priest who was marked with the holy oil.

And the giver of punishment, meeting him outside the walls of the town, puts him to death, he will not be responsible for his blood:

Further, no price may be given for the life of one who has taken life and whose right reward is death: he is certainly to be put to death.

And no price may be offered for one who has gone in flight to a safe town, for the purpose of letting him come back to his place before the death of the high priest.

So do not make the land where you are living unholy: for blood makes the land unholy: and there is no way of making the land free from the blood which has come on it, but only by the death of him who was the cause of it.

Do not make unclean the land where you are living and in which is my House: for I the Lord am present among the children of Israel.

For Mahlah, Tirzah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Noah, the daughters of Zelophehad, took as their husbands the sons of their father's brothers: