Deuteronomy 19:3-5

English Standard Version

³ You shall measure the distances^[a] and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

⁴ “This is the provision for ^(A)the manslayer, who by fleeing there may save his life. If anyone kills his neighbor unintentionally without having hated him in the past— ⁵ as when someone goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and his hand swings the axe to cut down a tree, and the head slips from the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies—he may flee to one of these cities and live,