Cities of refuge

1Then Yahweh said to Joshua,

2“Tell the Israeli people that they should choose some cities to which people can run in order to be safe/protected, like I told Moses that they should do.

3If someone kills another person accidentally, not intending to kill that person, the one who killed that person may run/escape to one of these cities and be safe/protected from someone trying to get revenge for that person’s death [MTY].

4When the one who killed someone arrives at the gate of one of those cities, he must stop there and tell the leaders of the city what happened. If they believe him, they must allow him to enter the city, and they must give him a place to live among them.

5If some relative of the one who was killed comes to that city to get revenge, the leaders of that city must not allow the relative to take the killer, because what happened was accidental. He did not hate that person and as a result deliberately kill him.

6But the person who killed someone must stay in that city until the city judges put him on trial. Only if the judges decide that the person who has run/escaped to their city did not deliberately kill the other person will they allow him to stay in that city, and he must stay there until the Supreme Priest dies. Then he may safely go back to his own town, because the death of the Supreme Priest will be considered to atone/pay for the death of the person who was killed.”

7So the Israelis chose these cities to be cities to which people could run to be safe/protected: Kedesh in the Galilee district in the hilly area where the tribe of Naphtali lived; Shechem in the hilly area where the tribe of Ephraim lived; Kiriath-Arba (which is now named Hebron) in the hilly area where the tribe of Judah lived;

8Bezer, on the east side of the Jordan River near Jericho, in the flat land in the desert where the tribe of Reuben lived; Ramoth in the Gilead region in the land where the tribe of Gad lived; and Golan in the Bashan region where the tribe of Manasseh lived.

9Any Israeli or any foreigner who lived among us, anyone who killed someone ◄accidentally/without planning to do it►, was allowed to run to one of those cities, and be safe/protected from some relative of the person who died coming there and killing him to get revenge. He could stay in that city until there was a trial there to decide whether he was telling the truth or not when he said that he did not plan to kill that person.