Joshua 20

1Then Yahweh spoke to Joshua, saying,

2Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge, about which I spoke to you through Moses,’

3so that a manslayer who strikes down a person unintentionally, without knowledge, may flee there, and they shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood.

4He shall flee to one of these cities and stand at the entrance of the city gate, and he shall speak his case in the hearing of the elders of that city. Then they shall take him into the city to themselves, and they shall give him a place, and he shall live with them.

5And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not hand the manslayer over into his hand, because he struck his neighbor without intent and had not hated him before, from yesterday or the day before.

6And he shall live in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest who is in office in those days. Then the manslayer may return and come to his city and to his house, to the city from which he fled.

7So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

8And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, they designated Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau from the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.

9These were the appointed cities for all the sons of Israel and for the sojourner residing among them, so that anyone who struck down a person unintentionally might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.