Joshua, 20

1. The LORD said to Joshua:

1. Yahweh said to Joshua,

2. "Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of which I spoke to them through Moses,

2. 'Speak to the Israelites and say to them, "Choose yourselves the cities of refuge of which I spoke to you through Moses,

3. to which one guilty of accidental and unintended homicide may flee for asylum from the avenger of blood.

3. to which anyone who has accidentally (unintentionally) killed someone else may flee, and which will serve you as refuge from the avenger of blood.

4. To one of these cities the killer shall flee, and standing at the entrance of the city gate, he shall plead his case before the elders, who must receive him and assign him a place in which to live among them.

4. (The killer must flee to one of these towns. He will stop at the entrance to the town gate and explain his case to the town elders. These will admit him to their town and assign him a place to live among them.

5. Though the avenger of blood pursues him, they are not to deliver up the homicide who slew his fellow man unintentionally and not out of previous hatred.

5. If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not hand the killer over to him, since he has killed his fellow unintentionally and was not motivated by long-standing hatred for him.

6. Once he has stood judgment before the community, he shall live on in that city till the death of the high priest who is in office at the time. Then the killer may go back home to his own city from which he fled."

6. He must stay in this town) until he is brought to trial before the community (until the death of the high priest then in office. Only then may the killer go back to his own town and to his own house in the town from which he has fled)."

7. So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the mountain region of Naphtali, Shechem in the mountain region of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the mountain region of Judah.

7. For this purpose they designated Kedesh in Galilee, in the highlands of Naphtali, Shechem in the highlands of Ephraim, and Kiriath-Arba -- now Hebron -- in the highlands of Judah.

8. And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho they designated Bezer on the open tableland in the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead in the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan in the tribe of Manasseh.

8. On the other, eastern, side of the Jordan opposite Jericho, in the desert of the tableland, they chose Bezer of the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan of the tribe of Manasseh.

9. These were the designated cities to which any Israelite or stranger living among them who had killed a person accidentally might flee to escape death at the hand of the avenger of blood, until he could appear before the community.

9. Such were the towns designated for all the Israelites and for foreigners living among them, so that anyone who had accidentally killed someone could flee there and might escape the hand of the avenger of blood, until brought to trial before the community.