Yehoshua 20

1. Hashem also spoke unto Yehoshua, saying,

2. Speak to the Bnei Yisroel, saying, Designate for you cities of refuge, whereof I spoke unto you by the yad Moshe:

3. That the slayer that killeth any nefesh unawares and unwittingly may flee there; and they shall be your refuge from the Go’el HaDahm.

4. And when he that doth flee unto one of those cities shall stand at the petach (entrance) of the sha’ar ha’ir, and shall declare his cause in the ears of the zekenim of that city, they shall admit him into the Ir unto them, and give him a makom, that he may dwell among them.

5. And if the Go’el HaDahm pursue after him, then they shall not surrender the slayer up into his yad; because he struck his neighbor unwittingly, and not with malice against him beforetime.

6. And he shall dwell in that city, until he stand before HaEdah L’Mishpat, and until the Mot of the HaKohen HaGadol that shall be in those yamim; then shall the slayer return, and come unto his own city, and unto his own bais, unto the Ir from whence he fled.

7. And they appointed Kedesh in the Galil in Har Naphtali and Shechem in Har Ephrayim, and Kiryat Arba, which is Chevron, in Har Yehudah.

8. And on the other side of the Yarden by Yericho eastward, they assigned Betzer in the midbar upon the plain out of the tribe of Reuven, and Ramot in Gil‘ad out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Menasheh.

9. These were the cities designated for kol Bnei Yisroel, and for the stranger that sojourneth among them, that whosoever killeth any nefesh unawares might flee there, and not die by the yad of the Go’el HaDahm, until he stood before HaEdah.