Chapter 19

Cities of Refuge. ^1 (A)When the Lord, your God, cuts down the nations whose land the Lord, your God, is giving you, and you have dispossessed them and settled in their cities and houses,^{(B) 2} you shall set apart three cities^[a] in the land the Lord, your God, is giving you to possess. ³ You shall measure the distances and divide into three regions the land of which the Lord, your God, is giving you possession, so that every homicide will be able to find a refuge.

⁴ This is the case of a homicide who may take refuge there and live: when someone strikes down a neighbor unintentionally and not out of previous hatred. ⁵ For example, if someone goes with a neighbor to a forest to cut wood, wielding an ax to cut down a tree, and its head flies off the handle and hits the neighbor a mortal blow, such a person may take refuge in one of these cities and live. ⁶ Should the distance be too great, the avenger of blood^[b] might in hot anger pursue, overtake, and strike the killer dead, even though that one does not deserve the death penalty since there had been no previous hatred; ⁷ for this reason I command you: Set apart three cities.

^8 (C)But if the Lord, your God, enlarges your territory, as he swore to your ancestors, and gives you all the land he promised your ancestors he would give, ⁹ because you carefully observe this whole commandment which I give you today, loving the Lord, your God, and ever walking in his ways, then add three more cities to these three. ¹⁰ Thus, in the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage, innocent blood will not be shed and you will not become guilty of bloodshed.^(D)

¹¹ However, if someone, hating a neighbor, lies in wait, attacks, and strikes the neighbor dead, and then flees to one of these cities, ¹² the elders of the killer’s own city shall send and have the killer taken from there, to be handed over to the avenger of blood and slain. ¹³ Do not show pity, but purge from Israel the innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.^(E)

¹⁰ Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you go across the Jordan into the land of Canaan, ¹¹ select for yourselves cities to serve as cities of asylum, where a homicide who has killed someone inadvertently may flee. ¹² These cities will serve you as places of asylum from the avenger of blood,^[a] so that a homicide will not be put to death until tried before the community. ¹³ As for the cities you assign, you will have six cities of asylum: ¹⁴ you will designate three cities beyond the Jordan, and you will designate three cities in the land of Canaan. These will be cities of asylum. ¹⁵ These six cities will serve as places of asylum for the Israelites, and for the resident or transient aliens among them, so that anyone who has killed a person inadvertently may flee there.

Murder and Manslaughter. ^16 [b]If someone strikes another with an iron instrument and causes death, that person is a murderer, and the murderer must be put to death.^{(A) 17} If someone strikes another with a death-dealing stone in the hand and death results, that person is a murderer, and the murderer must be put to death. ¹⁸ Or if someone strikes another with a death-dealing club in the hand and death results, that person is a murderer, and the murderer must be put to death. ¹⁹ The avenger of blood is the one who will kill the murderer, putting the individual to death on sight.

²⁰ If someone pushes another out of hatred, or throws something from an ambush, and death results,^{(B) 21} or strikes another with the hand out of enmity and death results, the assailant must be put to death as a murderer. The avenger of blood will kill the murderer on sight.

^22 (C)However, if someone pushes another without malice aforethought, or without lying in ambush throws some object at another, ²³ or without seeing drops upon another some death-dealing stone and death results, although there was neither enmity nor malice— ²⁴ then the community will judge between the assailant and the avenger of blood in accordance with these norms. ²⁵ The community will deliver the homicide from the avenger of blood and the community will return the homicide to the city of asylum where the latter had fled;^(D) and the individual will stay there until the death of the high priest who has been anointed with sacred oil. ²⁶ If the homicide leaves at all the bounds of the city of asylum to which flight had been made, ²⁷ and is found by the avenger of blood beyond the bounds of the city of asylum, and the avenger of blood kills the homicide, the avenger incurs no bloodguilt; ²⁸ for the homicide was required to stay in the city of asylum until the death of the high priest. Only after the death of the high priest may the homicide return to the land of the homicide’s possession.

Chapter 20

Cities of Refuge. ^1 (A)The Lord said to Joshua:^{[a] 2} Tell the Israelites: Designate for yourselves the cities of refuge of which I spoke to you through Moses, ³ to which anyone guilty of inadvertent and unintentional homicide may flee for asylum from the avenger of blood. ⁴ To one of these cities the killer shall flee, and standing at the entrance of the city gate, shall plead his case in the hearing of the elders of the city, who must receive him and assign him a place in which to live among them. ⁵ Though the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not deliver up to him the one who killed a neighbor unintentionally, when there had been no hatred previously. ⁶ Once he has stood judgment before the community, he shall live on in that city until the death of the high priest who is in office at the time. Then the killer may return home to the city from where he originally fled.

List of Cities. ⁷ So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the mountain region of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountain region of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the mountain region of Judah.^{(B) 8} And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho they designated Bezer in the wilderness on the tableland in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan in the tribe of Manasseh.^{(C) 9} These are the designated cities to which any Israelite or alien residing among them who had killed a person unintentionally might flee to escape death at the hand of the avenger of blood, until the killer could appear before the community.