Six Cities of Refuge

(Numbers 35:6-34; Deuteronomy 4:41-43; Deuteronomy 19:1-14)

1The LORD also spoke to Joshua, saying, 2Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spoke to you by the hand of Moses: 3That the slayer that kills any person unawares and unwittingly may flee thither: and they shall be your refuge from the avenger of blood. 4And when he that does flee to 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 to them, and give him a place, that he may dwell among them. 5And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver the slayer up into his hand; because he smote his neighbor unwittingly, and hated him not beforetime. 6And 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 to his own city, and to his own house, to the city from from where he fled.

7And they appointed Kedesh in Galilee in mount Naphtali, and Shechem in mount Ephraim, and Kirjatharba, which is Hebron, in the mountain of Judah. 8And on the other side Jordan by Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness on 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. 9These were the cities appointed for all the children of Israel, and for the stranger that sojournes among them, that whoever kills any person at unawares might flee thither, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stood before the congregation.