1And Jehovah spake unto Joshua , saying , 2Speak to the children of Israel , saying , Assign you the cities of refuge , whereof I spake unto you by Moses , 3that the manslayer that killeth any person unwittingly and unawares may flee thither : and they shall be unto you for a refuge from the avenger of blood . 4And he shall flee unto one of those cities , and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city , and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city ; and they shall take him into the city unto 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 up the manslayer into his hand ; because he smote his neighbor unawares , and hated him not beforetime . 6And he shall dwell in that city , until he stand before the congregation for judgment , until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days : then shall the manslayer return , and come unto his own city , and unto his own house , unto the city from whence he fled .
The Role of the Levites
7And they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill-country of Naphtali , and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba ( the same is Hebron ) in the hill-country of Judah . 8And beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward , they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in 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 appointed cities for all the children of Israel , and for the stranger that sojourneth among them , that whosoever killeth any person unwittingly might flee thither , and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood , until he stood before the congregation .