Old Testament · History

Joshua chapter 20

Then said to Joshua:“Tell the Israelites: Designate the that I told you about through Moses—so that anyone who kills a person , , can flee there. These cities will be your protection from the dead person’s .“The person must flee to one of these cities, stand at the entrance of the , and explain their case to the city . The elders must then take them into the city and give them a place to live among them.If the family avenger comes after them, the elders must not hand the killer over, because they struck their neighbor down without meaning to and toward them.The killer must stay in that city until they , and until the current dies. After that, the killer may go back to their own city and their own home—the city they originally fled from.”So these are the towns they : in the Galilee region, in the hill country of Naphtali; in the hill country of Ephraim; and in the hill country of Judah.And on the east side of the Jordan, across from Jericho, they designated in the wilderness plateau in the territory of Reuben; in the territory of Gad; and in Bashan in the territory of Manasseh.These were the designated cities for all the Israelites and for any , so that anyone who accidentally killed a person could flee there and not be killed by the family avenger before standing trial before the community.