Joshua 20
1The
LORD also spake unto Joshua, saying,
2Speak
to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:
3That the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither:
and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
4And
when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the entering 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 unto them, and give him a place, that he may
dwell among them.
5And if the avenger of blood
pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbour unwittingly, and
hated him not beforetime.
6And he shall dwell
in that city, until he stand before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the high priest that shall be in
those days: then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own house, unto the city from whence he
fled.
7And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee
in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.
8And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they 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.
9These were the cities appointed
for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any person at unawares
might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation.
