Joshua 20

1Then the LORD said to Joshua, 2“Tell the Israelites: ‘Appoint the cities of refuge that I told you about through Moses, 3so that anyone who kills a person by mistake, without meaning to, can flee there. They will be a place of refuge for you from the avenger of blood. 4The one who killed is to flee to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate and explain the case to the elders of that city. Then they are to take that person into the city and give them a place to live among them. 5If the avenger of blood comes after them, the elders must not hand the killer over to the avenger, because the killer struck the neighbor without meaning to and had not been that neighbor’s enemy before. 6The killer is to stay in that city until standing trial before the congregation, and until the death of the high priest who is serving at that time. Then the killer may go back home to their own city and their own house, the city they fled from.’” 7So they set apart these cities: Kedesh in Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali; Shechem, in the hill country of Ephraim; and Kiriath-arba, which is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah. 8East of the Jordan, across from Jericho, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau, from the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad; and Golan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh. 9These were the cities designated for all the Israelites and for the outsiders living among them. Anyone who killed a person by mistake could flee there and not die at the hands of the avenger of blood before standing trial before the congregation.