¹The Lord said to Moses, ²“Command the people of Israel, and say to them, When you enter the land of Canaan (this is the land that shall fall to you for an inheritance, the land of Canaan in its full extent), ³your south side shall be from the wilderness of Zin along the side of Edom, and your southern boundary shall be from the end of the Salt Sea on the east; ⁴and your boundary shall turn south of the ascent of Akrabbim, and cross to Zin, and its end shall be south of Kadesh-barnea; then it shall go on to Hazar-addar, and pass along to Azmon; ⁵and the boundary shall turn from Azmon to the Brook of Egypt, and its termination shall be at the sea.

⁶“For the western boundary, you shall have the Great Sea and its coast; this shall be your western boundary.

⁷“This shall be your northern boundary: from the Great Sea you shall mark out your line to Mount Hor; ⁸from Mount Hor you shall mark it out to the entrance of Hamath, and the end of the boundary shall be at Zeded; ⁹then the boundary shall extend to Ziphron, and its end shall be at Hazar-enan; this shall be your northern boundary.

¹⁰“You shall mark out your eastern boundary from Hazar-enan to Shepham; ¹¹and the boundary shall go down from Shepham to Riblah on the east side of Ain; and the boundary shall go down, and reach to the shoulder of the sea of Chinnereth on the east; ¹²and the boundary shall go down to the Jordan, and its end shall be at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land with its boundaries all round.”

¹³Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying, “This is the land which you shall inherit by lot, which the Lord has commanded to give to the nine tribes and to the half-tribe; ¹⁴for the tribe of the sons of Reuben by fathers’ houses and the tribe of the sons of Gad by their fathers’ houses have received their inheritance, and also the half-tribe of Manasseh; ¹⁵the two tribes and the half-tribe have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, toward the sunrise.”

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁷“These are the names of the men who shall divide the land to you for inheritance: Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun. ¹⁸You shall take one leader of every tribe, to divide the land for inheritance. ¹⁹These are the names of the men: Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. ²⁰Of the tribe of the sons of Simeon, Shemuel the son of Ammihud. ²¹Of the tribe of Benjamin, Elidad the son of Chislon. ²²Of the tribe of the sons of Dan a leader, Bukki the son of Jogli. ²³Of the sons of Joseph: of the tribe of the sons of Manasseh a leader, Hanniel the son of Ephod. ²⁴And of the tribe of the sons of Ephraim a leader, Kemuel the son of Shiphtan. ²⁵Of the tribe of the sons of Zebulun a leader, Eli-zaphan the son of Parnach. ²⁶Of the tribe of the sons of Issachar a leader, Paltiel the son of Azzan. ²⁷And of the tribe of the sons of Asher a leader, Ahihud the son of Shelomi. ²⁸Of the tribe of the sons of Naphtali a leader, Pedahel the son of Ammihud. ²⁹These are the men whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance for the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.”

Chapter 35

¹The Lord said to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, ²“Command the people of Israel, that they give to the Levites, from the inheritance of their possession, cities to dwell in; and you shall give to the Levites pasture lands round about the cities. ³The cities shall be theirs to dwell in, and their pasture lands shall be for their cattle and for their livestock and for all their beasts. ⁴The pasture lands of the cities, which you shall give to the Levites, shall reach from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits all round. ⁵And you shall measure, outside the city, for the east side two thousand cubits, and for the south side two thousand cubits, and for the west side two thousand cubits, and for the north side two thousand cubits, the city being in the middle; this shall belong to them as pasture land for their cities. ⁶The cities which you give to the Levites shall be the six cities of refuge, where you shall permit the manslayer to flee, and in addition to them you shall give forty-two cities. ⁷All the cities which you give to the Levites shall be forty-eight, with their pasture lands. ⁸And as for the cities which you shall give from the possession of the people of Israel, from the larger tribes you shall take many, and from the smaller tribes you shall take few; each, in proportion to the inheritance which it inherits, shall give of its cities to the Levites.”

⁹And the Lord said to Moses, ¹⁰“Say to the people of Israel, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ¹¹then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. ¹²The cities shall be for you a refuge from the avenger, that the manslayer may not die until he stands before the congregation for judgment. ¹³And the cities which you give shall be your six cities of refuge. ¹⁴You shall give three cities beyond the Jordan, and three cities in the land of Canaan, to be cities of refuge. ¹⁵These six cities shall be for refuge for the people of Israel, and for the stranger and for the sojourner among them, that any one who kills any person without intent may flee there.

¹⁶“But if he struck him down with an instrument of iron, so that he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. ¹⁷And if he struck him down with a stone in the hand, by which a man may die, and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. ¹⁸Or if he struck him down with a weapon of wood in the hand, by which a man may die, and he died, he is a murderer; the murderer shall be put to death. ¹⁹The avenger of blood shall himself put the murderer to death; when he meets him, he shall put him to death. ²⁰And if he stabbed him from hatred, or hurled at him, lying in wait, so that he died, ²¹or in enmity struck him down with his hand, so that he died, then he who struck the blow shall be put to death; he is a murderer; the avenger of blood shall put the murderer to death, when he meets him.

²²“But if he stabbed him suddenly without enmity, or hurled anything on him without lying in wait, ²³or used a stone, by which a man may die, and without seeing him cast it upon him, so that he died, though he was not his enemy, and did not seek his harm; ²⁴then the congregation shall judge between the manslayer and the avenger of blood, in accordance with these ordinances; ²⁵and the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge, to which he had fled, and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil. ²⁶But if the manslayer shall at any time go beyond the bounds of his city of refuge to which he fled, ²⁷and the avenger of blood finds him outside the bounds of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood slays the manslayer, he shall not be guilty of blood. ²⁸For the man must remain in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest; but after the death of the high priest the manslayer may return to the land of his possession.

²⁹“And these things shall be for a statute and ordinance to you throughout your generations in all your dwellings. ³⁰If any one kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses; but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. ³¹Moreover you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; but he shall be put to death. ³²And you shall accept no ransom for him who has fled to his city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. ³³You shall not thus pollute the land in which you live; for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of him who shed it. ³⁴You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.”

Read in Logos