10. Then innocent people will not be killed in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. And you will not be guilty for any such deaths.
11. “But suppose there is a man who hates his neighbor. That man might hide and wait to kill the person he hates. If he kills that person and runs to one of these cities of safety,
12. the elders in his hometown must send someone to get him and take him away from the city of safety. These leaders must hand him over to the close relative. He is a murderer and he must die.
13. Don’t feel sorry for him. He is guilty of killing an innocent person, and you must remove that guilt from Israel. Then everything will go well for you.
14. “You must not move the stones that mark your neighbor’s property. People put them there in the past to mark each person’s property. These stones mark the land that the Lord your God gave you.
15. “If someone is accused of doing something against the law, one witness is not enough to prove that the person is guilty. There must be two or three witnesses to prove that the person really did wrong.
16. “A witness might try to hurt another person by lying and saying that this person did wrong.
17. If that happens, both of them must go to the Lord’S special house and be judged by the priests and judges who are on duty at that time.
18. When the judges carefully ask their questions, they might find that the witness lied against the other person. If the witnesses tell lies,
19. you must punish them with the same punishment the other person would have received. In this way you will remove this evil from your group.
20. Other people will hear about this and be afraid, and people will not do evil things like that again.
21. “Don’t feel sorry about punishing someone who does wrong. If a life is taken, a life must be paid for it. The rule is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot—the punishment must equal the crime.