1Then the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying: 2 “Tell the Israelites: ‘Designate the cities of refuge, of which I instructed you through Moses, 3 so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there. These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying: 2 “Tell the Israelites: ‘Designate the cities of refuge, of which I instructed you through Moses, 3 so that anyone who kills a person accidentally and unintentionally may flee there. These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
4 “When someone flees to one of these cities, stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and states his case in the hearing of the elders of that city, they are to bring him into the city and give him a place to live among them. 5 And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not deliver up the manslayer into his hand, because he killed his neighbour unintentionally and did not hate him beforehand. 6 He is to stay in that city until he has stood trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then the manslayer may return home to his own city from which he fled’.”
7 So they set apart Kadesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is Hebron) in the hill country of Judah. 8 across the Jordan east of Jericho, they designated Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan in the tribe of Manasseh.
9 These were the cities appointed for all the Israelites or foreigners living among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stands trial before the assembly.