Joshua Chapter 20 Back Next{20:1} Yahweh spoke to
Joshua, saying,
{20:2} "Speak to the children of
Israel, saying, 'Assign the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you by Moses,
{20:3} that the
manslayer who kills any person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there. They shall be to you for a refuge from the avenger of
blood.
{20:4} He shall flee to one of those cities, and shall stand at the entrance of the
gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the
elders of that city. They shall take him into the city with them, and give him a place, that he may live among them.
{20:5} If the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the manslayer into his hand; because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, and didn't hate him before.
{20:6} He shall dwell in that city until he stands before the
congregation for judgment, until the
death of the
high priest that shall be in those days. Then the manslayer shall return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city he fled from.'"
{20:7} They set apart
Kedesh in
Galilee in the
hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of
Ephraim, and
Kiriath Arba (the same is
Hebron) in the hill country of
Judah.
{20:8} Beyond the
Jordan at
Jericho eastward, they assigned
Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of
Gad, and
Golan in
Bashan out of the tribe of
Manasseh.
{20:9} These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the alien who lives among them, that whoever kills any person unintentionally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stands before the congregation.
Joshua Chapter 20 Back Next