Deuteronomy 19:11

"But if any man hate his neighbor, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally so that he dieth, and he flee into one of these cities; then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die. Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the innocent blood from Israel, that it may go well with thee."

The thrust of this passage is to stress the policy that under no circumstance whatever is the guilty murderer to be spared. The sole intention of the refuge system was to make sure that no inadvertent or unintentional manslayer should be unjustly executed as a murderer. Upon no other issue has modern civilization blundered so extensively as upon this one. God here commanded that the murderer should not be pitied but should be delivered up to die for his crime. Our society has distinguished itself as a sob-sister advocate of the most ruthless murderers, weeping oceans of tears for the CRIMINAL and none at all for his hapless VICTIMS. The violent society which flourishes all around us is the result!