Joshua 20

Cities of Refuge

1Then the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying, 2“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses, 3so that the manslayer who strikes a person unintentionally, without prior intent, may flee there. They shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood. 4The one who flees to one of these cities shall stand at the entrance of the city gate and speak his case in the hearing of the elders of that city. They shall receive him into the city to themselves and give him a place, and he shall live with them. 5If the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor without knowledge and did not hate him previously. 6He shall live in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest who is in those days. Then the manslayer may return and go to his own city and to his own house, to the city from which he fled.’”

The Six Cities

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 appointed Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland 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 appointed cities for all the children of Israel and for the resident alien living among them, so that anyone who struck a person unintentionally might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood before standing before the congregation.