¹Then the Lord spoke to Joshua and said, ²“Speak to the sons of Israel and say, ‘Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge, about which I have told you through the intermediacy of Moses, ³so that a manslayer can flee there – one who strikes a person by accident, unintentionally – and they will be a refuge for you from the avenger of blood. ⁴And he will flee to one of these cities, and he will stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and relate his case in the audience of the elders of that city, and they will absorb him in the city with them, and they will give him a place, and he will dwell with them. ⁵And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they will not deliver the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbour unintentionally not having hated him in the past. ⁶And he shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation in judgment, until the death of the high priest who is in office in those days. Then the manslayer will return and go to his city and to his house – to the city from which he fled.’ ” ⁷So they sanctified Kedesh in Galilee at Mount Naphtali, and Shechem at Mount Ephraim, and Kiriath-Arba – that is Hebron – at the mountain of Judah. ⁸And across the Jordan east of Jericho they appointed Bezer in the desert, in the plains of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead, of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan of the tribe of Manasseh. ⁹These were the cities appointed for all the sons of Israel and for the foreigner temporarily resident in their midst, for them to flee there – anyone striking a person accidentally – so that he does not die at the hand of the avenger of blood, up to when he stands before the congregation.