Deuteronomy 19:3-5

New King James Version

³ You shall prepare roads for yourself, and divide into three parts the territory of your land which the Lord your God is giving you to inherit, that any manslayer may flee there.

⁴ “And ^(A)this is the case of the manslayer who flees there, that he may live: Whoever kills his neighbor ^[a]unintentionally, not having hated him in time past— ⁵ as when a man goes to the woods with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings a stroke with the ax to cut down the tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he shall flee to one of these cities and live;