for one to flee there who unintentionally killed his neighbor, without having hatred for him in time past; and by fleeing to one of these cities he might live:

Otherwise, the people of the land from which You brought us will say, “Since the Lord was not able to bring them into the land which He had promised them, and since He hated them, He has brought them out to kill them in the wilderness!”

Instead, you shall most certainly kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people.

“Now this is the case of the one who commits manslaughter, who may flee there and live: when he kills his friend unintentionally, not hating him previously—

Expiation of a Crime

“If a person who has been killed by someone is found lying in the open country in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, and it is not known who struck him,

then your elders and your judges shall go out and measure the distance to the cities which are around the one who was killed.

And it shall be that the city which is nearest to the person killed, that is, that the elders of that city shall take a heifer of the herd that has not been worked and has not pulled in a yoke;

And all the elders of that city which is nearest to the person killed shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley;