Joshua Chapter 20

Joshua 20 — English translation

Translation: THE JPS TANAKH: Gender-Sensitive Edition. Verse numbers match the Hebrew text below.

1. 1G OD said to Joshua:
2. 2“Speak to the Israelites: Designate the cities of refuge—about which I commanded you through Moses—
3. 3to which a manslayer who kills a person by mistake, unintentionally, may flee. They shall serve you as a refuge from the blood avenger.
4. 4[The slayer] shall flee to one of those cities, stand at the entrance to the city gate, and plead the case before the elders of that city; and they shall offer admission to the city and provide a place in which to live among them.
5. 5Should the blood avenger come in pursuit, they shall not give up the manslayer, since the other person was killed without intent and had not been an enemy in the past.
6. 6[The slayer] shall live in that city until there is a trial before the assembly, [and remain there] until the death of the high priest who is in office at that time. Thereafter, the manslayer may return home, to the town from which that person fled.”
7. 7So they set aside Kedesh in the hill country of Naphtali in Galilee, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba—that is, Hebron—in the hill country of Judah.
8. 8And across the Jordan, east of Jericho, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness, in the Tableland, from the tribe of Reuben; Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad; and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh.
9. 9Those were the towns designated for all the Israelites and for the resident aliens among them, to which anyone who killed a person unintentionally might flee, and not die by the hand of the blood avenger before standing trial by the assembly.

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