⁴ This is the kind of person I’m talking about: someone who kills a friend unintentionally, when there was no grudge between them, ⁵ such as when two friends go into the forest together to chop wood, and one of them swings an ax to cut a tree, and the ax head slips off the handle, hits his friend, and kills him. A person such as he can flee to one of these cities and be safe from revenge. ⁶ Otherwise, if the distance to the nearest city of refuge is too great, one of the relatives of the friend who was killed is going to feel honor-bound to avenge the dead man’s blood, and he’ll catch up with him and kill him while he’s still furious about his relative’s death. This wouldn’t be right because the man slaughterer didn’t deserve the death sentence. There was no grudge between these friends—the death was accidental.