Six Cities of Refuge
And the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying:
“Speak to the sons of Israel, saying: Give yourselves the cities of refuge of which I spoke to you by the hand of Moses,
for a murderer to flee there — one who strikes down a soul by mistake, without knowledge; and they shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood.
And he shall flee to one of these cities, and stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and speak his words in the ears of the elders of that city; and they shall gather him into the city to themselves, and give him a place, and he shall live with them.
And if the avenger of blood pursues after him, they shall not hand the murderer over into his hand — for without knowledge he struck down his neighbor, and he did not hate him before.
And 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 murderer shall return and come to his own city and to his own house, to the city from which he fled.”
And they consecrated Kedesh in Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba — that is Hebron — in the hill country of Judah.
And across the Jordan by Jericho, to the east, they gave Bezer in the wilderness, on the plain, from the tribe of Reuben; and Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad; and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.
These were the appointed cities for all the sons of Israel, and for the sojourner sojourning in their midst, for anyone who strikes down a soul by mistake to flee there, so that he would not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he had stood before the congregation.