1 Jehovah also spoke to Joshua, saying,

2 Speak to the children of Israel, saying: Appoint for yourselves cities of refuge, of which I have spoken to you by the hand of Moses,

3 that the slayer who kills a soul accidentally or unintentionally may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood.

4 And when he flees to one of those cities, and stands at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declares his matter in the ears of the elders of that city, they shall take him into the city to themselves, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them.

5 And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver the slayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, but did not hate him beforehand.

6 And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, and until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then the slayer may return and come to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.

7 So they appointed Kedesh in Galilee, in the mountains of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim, and Kirjath Arba (which is Hebron) in the mountains of Judah.

8 And on the other side of the Jordan, across from Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on the plain, of the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead, of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan, of the tribe of Manasseh.

9 These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them, that whoever kills a soul accidentally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, to stand before the congregation.