A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
Deuteronomy 19
Chapter summary coming soon.
Verse 1. When the LORD your God has cut off the nations whose land He is giving you, and when you have driven them out and settled in their cities and houses,
Verse 2. then you are to set apart for yourselves three cities within the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Verse 3. You are to build roads for yourselves and divide into three regions the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that any manslayer can flee to these cities.
Verse 4. Now this is the situation regarding the manslayer who flees to one of these cities to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally, without intending to harm him:
Verse 5. If he goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut timber and swings his axe to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes and kills his neighbor, he may flee to one of these cities to save his life.
Verse 6. Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue the manslayer in a rage, overtake him if the distance is great, and strike him dead though he did not deserve to die, since he did not intend any harm.
Verse 7. This is why I am commanding you to set apart for yourselves three cities.
Verse 8. And if the LORD your God enlarges your territory, as He swore to your fathers, and gives you all the land He promised them,
Verse 9. and if you carefully keep all these commandments I am giving you today, loving the LORD your God and walking in His ways at all times, then you are to add three more cities to these three.
Verse 10. Thus innocent blood will not be shed in the land that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, so that you will not be guilty of bloodshed.
Verse 11. If, however, a man hates his neighbor and lies in wait, attacks him and kills him, and then flees to one of these cities,
Verse 12. the elders of his city must send for him, bring him back, and hand him over to the avenger of blood to die.
Verse 13. You must show him no pity. You are to purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, that it may go well with you.
Verse 14. You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, which was set up by your ancestors to mark the inheritance you shall receive in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Verse 15. A lone witness is not sufficient to establish any wrongdoing or sin against a man, regardless of what offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.
Verse 16. If a false witness testifies against someone, accusing him of a crime,
Verse 17. both parties to the dispute must stand in the presence of the LORD, before the priests and judges who are in office at that time.
Verse 18. The judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is proven to be a liar who has falsely accused his brother,
Verse 19. you must do to him as he intended to do to his brother. So you must purge the evil from among you.
Verse 20. Then the rest of the people will hear and be afraid, and they will never again do anything so evil among you.
Verse 21. You must show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, and foot for foot.