20 The LORD also spake
unto Joshua, saying,
2 Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of
refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:
3 That the slayer that killeth any person unawares and unwittingly may flee
thither: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.
4 And 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.
5 And 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.
6 And 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.
7 And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in
mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah.
8 And 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.
9 These 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.