Say to the children of Israel, when you have gone over Jordan into the land of Canaan;

Then let certain towns be marked out as safe places to which anyone who takes the life of another in error may go in flight.

Three on the other side of Jordan and three in the land of Canaan, to be safe places for flight.

For the children of Israel and for the man from another country who is living among them, these six towns are to be safe places, where anyone causing the death of another through error may go in flight.

But if a man gives another man a blow with an iron instrument, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

Or if he gives him a blow with a stone in his hand, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

Or if he gave him blows with a wood instrument in his hands, causing his death, he is a taker of life and is certainly to be put to death.

He whose right it is to give punishment for blood, may himself put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

Or in hate gave him blows with his hand, causing death; he who gave the death-blow is to be put to death; he is a taker of life: he whose right it is to give punishment for blood may put to death the taker of life when he comes face to face with him.

But if a man has given a wound to another suddenly and not in hate, or without design has sent something against him,

Or has given him a blow with a stone, without seeing him, so causing his death, though he had nothing against him and no desire to do him evil:

And let the people keep the man responsible for the death safe from the hands of him who has the right of punishment for blood, and send him back to his safe town where he had gone in flight: there let him be till the death of the high priest who was marked with the holy oil.

And the giver of punishment, meeting him outside the walls of the town, puts him to death, he will not be responsible for his blood:

Because he had been ordered to keep inside the safe town till the death of the high priest: but after the death of the high priest the taker of life may come back to the place of his heritage.

These rules are to be your guide in judging through all your generations wherever you may be living.

Anyone causing the death of another is himself to be put to death on the word of witnesses: but the word of one witness is not enough.

Further, no price may be given for the life of one who has taken life and whose right reward is death: he is certainly to be put to death.

And no price may be offered for one who has gone in flight to a safe town, for the purpose of letting him come back to his place before the death of the high priest.

So do not make the land where you are living unholy: for blood makes the land unholy: and there is no way of making the land free from the blood which has come on it, but only by the death of him who was the cause of it.

Do not make unclean the land where you are living and in which is my House: for I the Lord am present among the children of Israel.

Now the heads of the families of the children of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of the sons of Joseph, came to Moses, the chiefs and the heads of families of the children of Israel being present,

And said, The Lord gave orders to my lord to make distribution of the land as their heritage to the children of Israel: and my lord was ordered by the Lord to give the heritage of Zelophehad, our brother, to his daughters.

Now if they get married to any of the sons of other tribes of the children of Israel, then their property will be taken away from the heritage of our fathers, and become part of the heritage of the tribe into which they get married: and their heritage will be taken away from the heritage of our tribe.

And at the time of the Jubilee of the children of Israel, their property will be joined to the heritage of the tribe of which they are part and will be taken away from the heritage of the tribe of our fathers.

So by the direction of the Lord, Moses gave orders to the children of Israel, saying, What the tribe of the sons of Joseph have said is right.

This is the order of the Lord about the daughters of Zelophehad: The Lord says, Let them take as their husbands whoever is most pleasing to them, but only among the family of their father's tribe.

And so no property will be handed from tribe to tribe among the children of Israel; but every one of the children of Israel will keep the heritage of his father's tribe.

And every daughter owning property in any tribe of the children of Israel is to be married to one of the family of her father's tribe, so that every man of the children of Israel may keep the heritage of his fathers.

And no property will be handed from one tribe to another, but every tribe of the children of Israel will keep its heritage.

So the daughters of Zelophehad did as the Lord gave orders to Moses:

These are the laws and the orders which the Lord gave to the children of Israel by Moses, in the lowlands of Moab by Jordan at Jericho.

These are the words which Moses said to all Israel on the far side of Jordan, in the waste land in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran on the one side, and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab on the other.

It is eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadesh-barnea.

Now in the fortieth year, on the first day of the eleventh month, Moses gave to the children of Israel all the orders which the Lord had given him for them;

The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, You have been long enough in this mountain:

See, all the land is before you: go in and take for yourselves the land which the Lord gave by an oath to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their seed after them.

At that time I said to you, I am not able to undertake the care of you by myself;

How is it possible for me by myself to be responsible for you, and undertake the weight of all your troubles and your arguments?

And you made answer and said to me, It is good for us to do as you say.

And at that time I gave orders to your judges, saying, Let all questions between your brothers come before you for hearing, and give decisions uprightly between a man and his brother or one from another nation who is with him.

In judging, do not let a man's position have any weight with you; give hearing equally to small and great; have no fear of any man, for it is God who is judge: and any cause in which you are not able to give a decision, you are to put before me and I will give it a hearing.

And at that time I gave you all the orders which you were to do.

Then we went on from Horeb, through all that great and cruel waste which you saw, on our way to the hill-country of the Amorites, as the Lord gave us orders; and we came to Kadesh-barnea.

And I said to you, You have come to the hill-country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us.

See now, the Lord your God has put the land into your hands: go up and take it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has said to you; have no fear and do not be troubled.

And you came near to me, every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us to go through the land with care and give us an account of the way we are to go and the towns to which we will come.

And what you said seemed good to me, and I took twelve men from among you, one from every tribe;

And they went up into the hill-country and came to the valley of Eshcol, and saw what was there.

And taking in their hands some of the fruit of the land, they came down again to us, and gave us their account, saying, It is a good land which the Lord our God is giving us.

And you made an angry outcry in your tents, and said, In his hate for us the Lord has taken us out of the land of Egypt, to give us up into the hands of the Amorites for our destruction.

Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.

Then I said to you, Have no fear of them.

The Lord your God who goes before you will be fighting for you, and will do such wonders as he did for you in Egypt before your eyes;

And in the waste land, where you have seen how the Lord was supporting you, as a man does his son, in all your journeying till you came to this place.

Who goes before you on your way, looking for a place where you may put up your tents, in fire by night, lighting up the way you are to go, and in a cloud by day.

Truly, not one of this evil generation will see that good land which I said I would give to your fathers,

But only Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, he will see it; and to him and to his children I will give the land over which his feet have gone, because he has been true to the Lord with all his heart.

Joshua, the son of Nun, your servant, he will go into the land: say to him that he is to be strong, for he will be Israel's guide into their heritage.

And your little ones, who, you said, would come into strange hands, your children, who now have no knowledge of good or evil, they will go into that land, and to them I will give it and it will be theirs.

Then you said to me, We have done evil against the Lord, we will go up to the attack, as the Lord our God has given us orders. And arming yourselves every one, you made ready to go up without care into the hill-country.

And the Lord said to me, Say to them, Do not go up to the attack; for I am not among you, and you will be overcome by those who are against you.

This I said to you, but you gave no attention and went against the orders of the Lord, and in your pride went up into the hill-country.

And the Amorites who were in the hill-country came out against you and put you to flight, rushing after you like bees, and overcame you in Seir, driving you even as far as Hormah.

And you came back, weeping before the Lord; but the Lord gave no attention to your cries and did not give ear to you.

Then we went back, journeying into the waste land by the way to the Red Sea, as the Lord had said to me: and we were a long time going round Mount Seir.

And the Lord said to me,

You have been journeying round this mountain long enough: now go to the north;

And give the people orders, saying, You are about to go through the land of your brothers, the children of Esau, who are living in Seir; and they will have fear of you; so take care what you do:

Make no attack on them, for I will not give you any of their land, not even space enough for a man's foot: because I have given Mount Seir to Esau for his heritage.

And the Lord said to me, Make no attack on Moab and do not go to war with them, for I will not give you any of his land: because I have given Ar to the children of Lot for their heritage.

(In the past the Emim were living there; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall;

And the Horites in earlier times were living in Seir, but the children of Esau took their place; they sent destruction on them and took their land for themselves, as Israel did to the land of his heritage which the Lord gave them.)

The word of the Lord came to me, saying,

You are about to go by Ar, the limit of the country of Moab;

And when you come near the land of the children of Ammon, give them no cause of trouble and do not make war on them, for I will not give you any of the land of the children of Ammon for your heritage: because I have given it to the children of Lot.

(That land is said to have been a land of the Rephaim, for Rephaim had been living there in earlier times, but they were named Zamzummim by the Ammonites;

They were a great people, tall as the Anakim, and equal to them in number; but the Lord sent destruction on them and the children of Ammon took their place, living in their land;

As he did for the children of Esau living in Seir, when he sent destruction on the Horites before them, and they took their land where they are living to this day:

And the Avvim, living in the small towns as far as Gaza, came to destruction by the hands of the Caphtorim who came out from Caphtor and took their land.)

Get up now, and go on your journey, crossing over the valley of the Arnon: see, I have given into your hands Sihon, the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and all his land: go forward to make it yours, and make war on him,

Then from the waste land of Kedemoth I sent representatives to Sihon, king of Heshbon, with words of peace, saying,

Let me go through your land: I will keep to the highway, not turning to the right or to the left;

But Sihon, king of Heshbon, would not let us go through; for the Lord your God made his spirit hard and his heart strong, so that he might give him up into your hands as at this day.

And the Lord said to me, See, from now on I have given Sihon and his land into your hands: go forward now to take his land and make it yours.

Then Sihon came out against us with all his people, to make an attack on us at Jahaz.

At that time we took all his towns, and gave them over to complete destruction, together with men, women, and children; we had no mercy on any:

From Aroer on the edge of the valley of the Arnon and from the town in the valley as far as Gilead, no town was strong enough to keep us out; the Lord our God gave them all into our hands:

But you did not go near the land of the children of Ammon, that is, all the side of the river Jabbok or the towns of the hill-country, wherever the Lord our God had said we were not to go.

Then turning we took the road to Bashan: and Og, king of Bashan, came out against us with all his people, and made an attack on us at Edrei.

And the Lord said to me, Have no fear of him: for I have given him and all his people and his land into your hands; do to him as you did to Sihon, king of the Amorites, who was ruling in Heshbon.

So the Lord our God gave up Og, king of Bashan, and all his people into our hands; and we overcame him so completely that all his people came to their end in the fight.

And we put them to the curse, every town together with men, women, and children.

At that time we took their land from the two kings of the Amorites on the far side of Jordan, from the valley of the Arnon to Mount Hermon;

And this land which we took at that time, from Aroer by the valley of the Arnon, and half the hill-country of Gilead with its towns, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites.

The rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, all the land of Argob, together with Bashan, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (This land is named the land of the Rephaim.

Jair, the son of Manasseh, took all the land of Argob, as far as the country of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, naming it, Bashan, Havvoth-Jair after himself, as it is to this day.)

And Gilead I gave to Machir.

And the land from Gilead to the valley of the Arnon, with the middle of the valley as a limit, as far as the river Jabbok which is the limit of the country of the children of Ammon, I gave to the Reubenites and the Gadites;

As well as the Arabah, with the river Jordan as their limit, from Chinnereth to the Salt Sea, under the slopes of Pisgah to the east.

At that time I gave you orders, saying, The Lord has given you this land for your heritage: all the men of war are to go over armed before your brothers the children of Israel.