Joshua 20

1Then Yahweh said to Joshua,

2“Tell the Israelites, ‘Designate the cities of refuge that I told you about through Moses,

3so that a killer who strikes and kills a person accidentally, without intending to, may flee there. They will be a refuge for you from the avenger of blood.

4The killer is to flee to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate, and state his case to the elders of that city. Then they are to take him into the city with them and give him a place, and he is to live among them.

5If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not hand the killer over to him, because he struck his neighbor without intending to and had not hated him before.

6He is to live in that city until he stands trial before the congregation, until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then the killer may return to his own town and his own home, to the town from which he fled.’”

7So they set apart Kedesh 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.

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

9These were the designated cities for all the Israelites and for the foreigner who lives among them, so that anyone who killed a person accidentally could flee there and not die at the hand of the avenger of blood before he had stood trial before the congregation.