 1 The Lord spoke to Joshua saying, 2 Speak to the children of Israel saying, Appoint cities of refuge for you, as I have spoken to you by the hand of Moses; 3 that the manslayer who in innocence strikes anyone mortally, without knowing, may flee there. They will be your refuge from the avenger of blood. 4 He will flee to one of those cities and stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and declare his cause in the hearing+ of the elders of that city. They will take him into the city to themselves and make him a place, and he will live with them. 5 If the avenger of blood pursues him, then they shall not deliver the manslayer into his hand, for he has struck his neighbor without knowing, and did not hate him in past time. 6 He 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 shall return and come to his city, and to his house, to the city from where he fled. 7 They set apart Kadesh in Galilee, in the hills of Naphtali. And Shechem in the hills of Ephraim. And Kirjatharba it is Hebron in the hills of Judah. 8 Beyond the Jordan, at Jericho eastward, they gave Bezer in the wilderness, on the tableland 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 appointed cities for all the children of Israel and for the aliens living in their midst so that one who had killed without knowing might flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stood before the congregation.
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