Joshua 20–22

Cities of Safety

20Then the Lord said to Joshua: ²“Tell the Israelites to choose the special cities of safety, as I had Moses command you to do. ³If a person kills someone accidentally and without meaning to kill him, that person may go to a city of safety to hide. There the killer will be safe from the relative who has the duty of punishing a murderer.

⁴“When the killer runs to one of those cities, he must stop at the entrance gate, stand there, and tell the leaders of the people what happened. Then that person will be allowed to enter the city and will be given a place to live among them. ⁵But if the one who is chasing him follows him to that city, the leaders of the city must not hand over the killer. It was an accident. He did not hate him beforehand or kill him on purpose. ⁶The killer must stay in the city until a court comes to a decision and until the high priest dies. Then he may go back home to the town from which he ran away.”

⁷So the Israelites chose these cities to be cities of safety: Kedesh in Galilee in the mountains of Naphtali; Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim; Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron) in the mountains of Judah; ⁸Bezer on the east side of the Jordan River near Jericho in the desert in the land of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead in the land of Gad; and Golan in Bashan in the land of Manasseh. ⁹Any Israelite or anyone living among them who killed someone accidentally was to be allowed to run to one of these cities of safety. There he would not be killed, before he was judged, by the relative who had the duty of punishing a murderer.

Towns for the Levites

21The heads of the Levite families went to talk to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua son of Nun, and to the heads of the families of all the tribes of Israel. ²At Shiloh in the land of Canaan, the heads of the Levite families said to them, “The Lord commanded Moses that you give us towns where we may live and pastures for our animals.” ³So the Israelites obeyed this command of the Lord and gave the Levite people these towns and pastures for their own land: ⁴The Kohath family groups were part of the tribe of Levi. Some of the Levites in the Kohath family groups were from the family of Aaron the priest. To these Levites were given thirteen towns in the areas of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. ⁵The other family groups of Kohath were given ten towns in the areas of Ephraim, Dan, and West Manasseh.

⁶The people from the Gershon family groups were given thirteen towns in the land of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the East Manasseh in Bashan.

⁷The family groups of Merari were given twelve towns in the areas of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.

⁸So the Israelites gave the Levites these towns and the pastures around them, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

⁹These are the names of the towns that came from the lands of Judah and Simeon. ¹⁰The first choice of towns was given to the Kohath family groups of the Levites. ¹¹They gave them Kiriath Arba, also called Hebron, and all its pastures in the mountains of Judah. (Arba was the father of Anak.) ¹²But the fields and the villages around Kiriath Arba had been given to Caleb son of Jephunneh.

¹³So they gave the city of Hebron to the descendants of Aaron (Hebron was a city of safety). They also gave them the towns of Libnah, ¹⁴Jattir, Eshtemoa, ¹⁵Holon, Debir, ¹⁶Ain, Juttah, and Beth Shemesh, and all the pastures around them. Nine towns were given from these two tribes.

¹⁷They also gave the people of Aaron these cities that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin: Gibeon, Geba, ¹⁸Anathoth, and Almon. They gave them these four towns and the pastures around them.

¹⁹So these thirteen towns with their pastures were given to the priests, who were from the family of Aaron.

²⁰The other Kohathite family groups of the Levites were given these towns from the tribe of Ephraim: ²¹Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim (which was a city of safety), Gezer, ²²Kibzaim, and Beth Horon. There were four towns and their pastures.

²³The tribe of Dan gave them Eltekeh, Gibbethon, ²⁴Aijalon, and Gath Rimmon. There were four towns and their pastures.

²⁵West Manasseh gave them Taanach and Gath Rimmon and the pastures around these two towns.

²⁶So these ten towns and the pastures around them were given to the rest of the Kohathite family groups.

²⁷The Gershonite family groups of the Levite tribe were given these towns: East Manasseh gave them Golan in Bashan, which was a city of safety, and Be Eshtarah, and the pastures around these two towns.

²⁸The tribe of Issachar gave them Kishion, Daberath, ²⁹Jarmuth, and En Gannim, and the pastures around these four towns.

³⁰The tribe of Asher gave them Mishal, Abdon, ³¹Helkath, and Rehob, and the pastures around these four towns.

³²The tribe of Naphtali gave them Kedesh in Galilee (a city of safety), Hammoth Dor, and Kartan, and the pastures around these three towns.

³³So the Gershonite family groups received thirteen towns and the pastures around them.

³⁴The Merarite family groups (the rest of the Levites) were given these towns: The tribe of Zebulun gave them Jokneam, Kartah, ³⁵Dimnah, and Nahalal, and the pastures around these four towns.

³⁶The tribe of Reuben gave them Bezer, Jahaz, ³⁷Kedemoth, and Mephaath, along with the pastures around these four towns.

³⁸The tribe of Gad gave them Ramoth in Gilead (a city of safety), Mahanaim, ³⁹Heshbon, and Jazer, and the pastures around these four towns.

⁴⁰So the total number of towns given to the Merarite family groups was twelve.

⁴¹A total of forty-eight towns with their pastures in the land of Israel were given to the Levites. ⁴²Each town had pastures around it.

⁴³So the Lord gave the people all the land he had promised their ancestors. The people took the land and lived there. ⁴⁴The Lord gave them peace on all sides, as he had promised their ancestors. None of their enemies defeated them; the Lord handed all their enemies over to them. ⁴⁵He kept every promise he had made to the Israelites; each one came true.

Three Tribes Go Home

22Then Joshua called a meeting of all the people from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh. ²He said to them, “You have done everything Moses, the Lord’s servant, told you to do. You have also obeyed all my commands. ³For a long time you have supported the other Israelites. You have been careful to obey the commands the Lord your God gave you. ⁴The Lord your God promised to give the Israelites peace, and he has kept his promise. Now you may go back to your homes, to the land that Moses, the Lord’s servant, gave you, on the east side of the Jordan River. ⁵But be careful to obey the teachings and laws Moses, the Lord’s servant, gave you: to love the Lord your God and obey his commands, to continue to follow him and serve him the very best you can.”

⁶Then Joshua said good-bye to them, and they left and went away to their homes. ⁷Moses had given the land of Bashan to East Manasseh. Joshua gave land on the west side of the Jordan River to West Manasseh. And he sent them to their homes and he blessed them. ⁸He said, “Go back to your homes and your riches. You have many animals, silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and many beautiful clothes. Also, you have taken many things from your enemies that you should divide among yourselves.”

⁹So the people from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh left the other Israelites at Shiloh in Canaan and went back to Gilead. It was their own land, given to them by Moses as the Lord had commanded.

¹⁰The people of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh went to Geliloth, near the Jordan River in the land of Canaan. There they built a beautiful altar. ¹¹The other Israelites still at Shiloh heard about the altar these three tribes built at the border of Canaan at Geliloth, near the Jordan River on Israel’s side. ¹²All the Israelites became very angry at these three tribes, so they met together and decided to fight them.

¹³The Israelites sent Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest to Gilead to talk to the people of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh. ¹⁴They also sent one leader from each of the ten tribes at Shiloh. Each of them was a leader of his family group of Israelites.

¹⁵These leaders went to Gilead to talk to the people of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh. They said: ¹⁶“All the Israelites ask you: ‘Why did you turn against the God of Israel by building an altar for yourselves? You know that this is against God’s law. ¹⁷Remember what happened at Peor? We still suffer today because of that sin, for which God made many Israelites very sick. ¹⁸And now are you turning against the Lord and refusing to follow him?

“ ‘If you don’t stop what you’re doing today, the Lord will be angry with everyone in Israel tomorrow. ¹⁹If your land is unclean, come over into our land where the Lord’s Tent is. Share it with us. But don’t turn against the Lord and us by building another altar for the Lord our God. ²⁰Remember how Achan son of Zerah refused to obey the command about what must be completely destroyed. That one man broke God’s law, but all the Israelites were punished. Achan died because of his sin, but others also died.’ ”

²¹The people from Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh answered, ²²“The Lord is God of gods! The Lord is God of gods! God knows, and we want you to know also. If we have done something wrong, you may kill us. ²³If we broke God’s law, we ask the Lord himself to punish us. We did not build this altar to offer burnt offerings or grain and fellowship offerings.

²⁴“We did not build it for that reason. We feared that someday your people would not accept us as part of your nation. Then they might say, ‘You cannot worship the Lord, the God of Israel. ²⁵The Lord made the Jordan River a border between us and you people of Reuben and Gad. You cannot worship the Lord.’ So we feared that your children might make our children stop worshiping the Lord.

²⁶“That is why we decided to build this altar. But it is not for burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²⁷This altar is proof to you and us and to…