The Cities of Refuge^(A)

19 ^(B)“After the Lord your God has destroyed the people whose land he is giving you and after you have taken their cities and houses and settled there, ^2-3 divide the territory into three parts, each with a city that can be easily reached. Then any of you that kill will be able to escape to one of them for protection. ⁴ If you accidentally kill someone who is not your enemy, you may escape to any of these cities and be safe. ⁵ For example, if two of you go into the forest together to cut wood and if, as one of you is chopping down a tree, the ax head comes off the handle and kills the other, you can run to one of those three cities and be safe. ⁶ If there were only one city, the distance to it might be too great, and the relative who is responsible for taking revenge for the killing might catch you and angrily kill an innocent person. After all, it was by accident that you killed someone who was not your enemy. ⁷ This is why I order you to set aside three cities.

⁸ “When the Lord your God enlarges your territory, as he told your ancestors he would, and gives you all the land he has promised, ⁹ then you are to select three more cities. (He will give you this land if you do everything that I command you today and if you love the Lord your God and live according to his teachings.) ¹⁰ Do this, so that innocent people will not die and so that you will not be guilty of putting them to death in the land that the Lord is giving you.

¹¹ “But suppose you deliberately murder your enemy in cold blood and then escape to one of those cities for protection. ¹² In that case, the leaders of your own town are to send for you and hand you over to the relative responsible for taking revenge for the murder, so that you may be put to death. ¹³ No mercy will be shown to you. Israel must rid itself of murderers, so that all will go well.

The Cities of Refuge

20 ^(A)Then the Lord told Joshua ² to say to the people of Israel, “Choose the cities of refuge that I had Moses tell you about. ³ If any of you accidentally kills someone, you can go there and escape the one who is looking for revenge. ⁴ You can run away to one of these cities, go to the place of judgment at the entrance to the city, and explain to the leaders what happened. Then they will let you into the city and give you a place to live in, so that you can stay there. ⁵ If the one looking for revenge follows you there, the people of the city must not hand you over to that one. They must protect you because you killed the person accidentally and not out of anger. ⁶ You may stay in the city until you have received a public trial and until the death of the man who is then the High Priest. Then you may go back home to your own town, from which you had run away.”

⁷ So, on the west side of the Jordan they set aside Kedesh in Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali; Shechem, in the hill country of Ephraim; and Hebron, in the hill country of Judah. ⁸ East of the Jordan, on the desert plateau east of Jericho, they chose Bezer in the territory of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead, in the territory of Gad; and Golan in Bashan, in the territory of Manasseh. ⁹ These were the cities of refuge chosen for all the people of Israel and for any foreigner living among them. Any who killed a person accidentally could find protection there from the one looking for revenge; they could not be killed unless they had first received a public trial.