Joshua 20

The Cities of Refuge

20The Lord also spoke to Joshua, saying, ²“Speak to the children of Israel, saying: ^a‘Appoint ¹for yourselves cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, ³that the slayer who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood. ⁴And when he flees to one of those cities, and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and ²declares his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city as one of them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. ^5bThen if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand. ⁶And he shall dwell in that city ^cuntil he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.’ ”

⁷So they appointed ^dKedesh in Galilee, in the mountains of Naphtali, ^eShechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and ^fKirjath Arba (which is Hebron) in ^gthe mountains of Judah. ⁸And on the other side of the Jordan, by Jericho eastward, they assigned ^hBezer in the wilderness on the plain, from the tribe of Reuben, ⁱRamoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad, and ^jGolan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh. ^9kThese were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who ³dwelt among them, that whoever killed a person accidentally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood ^luntil he stood before the congregation.