Joshua 20

Revised Geneva Translation

20 The LORD also spoke to Joshua, saying:

² “Speak to the children of Israel, and say, ‘Appoint cities of refuge for yourself, of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses,

³ “so that the killer who kills any person by ignorance, unwittingly, may flee from there. And they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.

⁴ “And he who flees to one of those cities shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and shall state his case to the elders of the city. And they shall receive him to themselves into the city and give him a place, so that he may dwell with them.

⁵ “And if the avenger of blood pursues after him, they shall not deliver the killer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, nor did he hate him beforehand.

⁶ “But he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the Congregation in judgment, or until the death of the High Priest in those days. Then the killer shall return and come to his own city and to his own house, to the city from where he fled.”

⁷ Then they appointed Kedesh in Galilee on Mount Naphtali, and Shechem on Mount Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba (which is Hebron) on the Mountain of Judah.

⁸ And on the other side of Jordan, toward Jericho, eastward, they appointed 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 appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger who sojourned among them, so that whoever killed any person unintentionally, might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the Congregation.