1Then Yahweh spoke to Joshua, saying,
2“Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘Designate for yourselves the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses,
3so that a manslayer who strikes down a life by mistake, without knowledge, may flee there; and they shall serve you as a refuge from the avenger of blood.
4When he flees to one of these cities, he shall stand at the entrance of the city gate and speak his case in the ears of the elders of that city; and they shall gather him into the city to themselves and give him a place, and he shall dwell with them.
5And when the avenger of blood pursues after him, they shall not hand over the manslayer into his hand, because he struck down his neighbor without knowledge and was not hating him from yesterday or the day before.
6He shall dwell 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 come to his city and to his house, to the city from which he fled.”
7So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-Arba (that is, Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.
8And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho they assigned Bezer in the wilderness, on the plateau, from the tribe of Reuben; and 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 sons of Israel and for the sojourner sojourning among them, so that anyone who strikes down a life by mistake might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stands before the congregation.
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