Anyone who accidentally killed someone<n id="1" /> without hating him at the time of the accident<n id="2" /> could flee to one of those cities and be safe.

<t /><p class="bodytext">Then when the <sc>Lordsc> your God brings you to the land he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you &#8211; a land with large, fine cities you did not build,

you must by all means<n id="1" /> slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; annihilate<n id="2" /> with the sword everyone in it, as well as the livestock.

You must gather all of its plunder into the middle of the plaza<n id="1" /> and burn the city and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the <sc>Lordsc> your God. It will be an abandoned ruin<n id="2" /> forever &#8211; it must never be rebuilt again.

Suppose he goes with someone else<n id="1" /> to the forest to cut wood and when he raises the ax<n id="2" /> to cut the tree, the ax head flies loose<n id="3" /> from the handle and strikes<n id="4" /> his fellow worker<n id="5" /> so hard that he dies. The person responsible<n id="6" /> may then flee to one of these cities to save himself.<n id="7" />

and then you are careful to observe all these commandments<n id="1" /> I am giving<n id="2" /> you today (namely, to love the <sc>Lordsc> your God and to always walk in his ways), then you must add three more cities<n id="3" /> to these three.

However, the women, little children, cattle, and anything else in the city &#8211; all its plunder &#8211; you may take for yourselves as spoil. You may take from your enemies the plunder that the <sc>Lordsc> your God has given you.

If you besiege a city for a long time while attempting to capture it,<n id="1" /> you must not chop down its trees,<n id="2" /> for you may eat fruit<n id="3" /> from them and should not cut them down. A tree in the field is not human that you should besiege it!<n id="4" />

However, you may chop down any tree you know is not suitable for food,<n id="1" /> and you may use it to build siege works<n id="2" /> against the city that is making war with you until that city falls.p>

and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water,<n id="1" /> to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown.<n id="2" /> There at the wadi they are to break the heifer&#8217;s neck.

the men of her city must bring the young woman to the door of her father&#8217;s house and stone her to death, for she has done a disgraceful thing<n id="1" /> in Israel by behaving like a prostitute while living in her father&#8217;s house. In this way you will purge<n id="2" /> evil from among you.p>