Yehoshua - Chapter 20

1. And the Lord spoke to Joshua, saying,

2. "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, 'Prepare for you cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses.

3. To which a slayer that kills any person unawares, unwittingly, shall flee and they shall be for you as a refuge from the avenger of blood.

4. And he shall flee to one of those cities, and he shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city to them, and give him a place, and he shall dwell among them.

5. And if the avenger of blood pursue him, then they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he smote his neighbor unwittingly, and did not hate him from before.

6. And he shall dwell in that city until he stand before the tribunal for judgment, until the death of the High Priest that shall be in those days. Then shall the slayer return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from which he fled."

7. And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee Mount Naphtali, and Shechem in Mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.

8. And on the other side of the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they had assigned Bezer in the wilderness upon the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.

9. These were the cities set apart for all the children of Israel and for the stranger that sojourns among them, that whosoever kills any person unawares might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the tribunal.