1 The LORD spoke to Joshua: 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Appoint for yourselves the cities of refuge that I spoke to you about through Moses, 3 so that a person who kills someone unintentionally and unknowingly may flee there. They will be a refuge for you from the avenger of blood. 4 He must flee to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the city gate, and state his case in the hearing of the elders of that city. They must receive him into the city with them and give him a place to live among them. 5 If the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not hand the killer over to him, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly and had not hated him before. 6 He must remain in that city until he has stood before the congregation for judgment and until the death of the high priest serving in those days. Then the killer may return to his own city and his own house, to the city from which he fled.’ ” 7 So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee, in the hill country of Naphtali; Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim; and Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron, in the hill country of Judah. 8 Beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, they appointed Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh. 9 These were the cities appointed for all the people of Israel and for the resident foreigner living among them, so that anyone who killed a person unintentionally could flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood until he had stood before the congregation.