Then the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying, 2 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘¹Designate ^athe cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you ²through Moses, 3 so that one who commits manslaughter by ¹killing a person unintentionally, without premeditation, may flee there, and they shall become your refuge from the avenger of blood. 4 Then he shall flee to one of these cities, and shall stand at the entrance of the ^agate of the city, and state his case in the ¹presence of the elders of that city; and they shall ²receive him into the city to them and give him a place, so that he may remain among them. 5 Now ^aif the avenger of blood pursues him, then they are not to hand the one who committed manslaughter over to him, since he struck his neighbor without premeditation and did not hate him previously. 6 And he shall remain in that city ^auntil he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the one who is high priest in those days. Then ¹he shall ²return to his own city and to his own house, to the city from which he fled.’”

7 So they ¹set apart ^aKedesh in ²Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in ^bthe hill country of Judah. 8 And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, they ¹designated 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. 9 ^aThese were the designated cities for all the sons of Israel and for the stranger who resides among them, so that whoever ¹kills a person unintentionally may flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he stands before the congregation.