THE BOOK OF JOSHUA

 

Joshua Chapter 20

1 ¶ The LORD also said to Joshua,

2 Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint among you cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses:

3 That the slayer who kills any person accidentally and unintentionally may flee to: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.

4 And when he who flees to one of those cities shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and shall explain his case to the elders of that city, they shall take him into their city, and give him a place, so he may live among them.

5 And if the avenger of blood pursues him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he killed his neighbor unintentionally, and had not previously hated him.

6 And he shall dwell in that city, until he has been tried before the community, and until the death of him who is high priest at that time: then the slayer shall return to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from which he fled.

7 ¶ And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah.

8 And on the other side of the Jordan east of Jericho, they set apart Bezer in the wilderness on the plain from the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.

9 These were the cities set apart for all the children of Israel, and for foreigners living among them, so that anyone who killed a person unintentionally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he had been tried before the community.