Numbers 35:32-34

Complete Jewish Bible

³² Likewise, you are not to accept for someone who has fled to his city of refuge a ransom that would allow him to return to his land before the death of the cohen. ³³ In this way you will not defile the land in which you are living. For blood defiles the land, and in this land no atonement can be made for the blood shed in it except the blood of him who shed it. ³⁴ No, you are not to defile the land in which you live and in which I live; for I, Adonai, live among the people of Isra’el.’”