Cities of Refuge

1YHWH spoke to Joshua, saying, 2“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Y’all are to select the cities of refuge that I told y’all about through Moses, 3so that anyone who kills a person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there. They will be a refuge for y’all from the avenger of blood. 4When someone flee to one of those cities, they are to stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and declare their case in the ears of the elders of that city. They are to take him into the city with them, and give him a place, so that the he may live among them. 5If the avenger of blood pursues him, then they must not surrender the one who committed manslaughter, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, and didn’t hate him before. 6He is to dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest serving in those days. Then the one who committed manslaughter may return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city he fled from.’”

7They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. 8Beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh. 9These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the alien who lives among them, that whoever kills any person unintentionally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stands trial before the congregation.