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¹ And YHWH speaks to Joshua, saying,² "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, Give cities of refuge for yourselves, as I have spoken to you by the hand of Moses,³ for the fleeing there of a manslayer striking life through ignorance, without knowledge; and they have been for a refuge to you from the redeemer of blood.⁴ When [one] has fled to one of these cities, and has stood [at] the opening of the gate of the city, and has spoken his matter in the ears of [the] elderly of that city, then they have gathered him into the city to them, and have given a place to him, and he has dwelt with them.⁵ And when the redeemer of blood pursues after him, then they do not shut up the manslayer into his hand, for he has struck his neighbor without knowledge, and is not hating him until now;⁶ and he has dwelt in that city until his standing before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the chief priest who is in those days—then the manslayer turns back and has come to his city, and to his house, to the city from where he fled."

⁷ And they sanctify Kedesh in Galilee, in the hill-country of Naphtali, and Shechem in the hill-country of Ephraim, and Kirjath-Arba (it [is] Hebron), in the hill-country of Judah;⁸ and beyond the Jordan, [at] Jericho eastward, they have given Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain, out of the tribe of Reuben, and Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.⁹ These have been cities of meeting for all the sons of Israel, and for a sojourner who is sojourning in their midst, for the fleeing there of anyone striking life through ignorance, and he does not die by the hand of the redeemer of blood until his standing before the congregation.