⁵ If a member of the victim’s family follows, seeking revenge, they won’t hand the killer over. This is because the killer struck down the neighbor by accident and hadn’t been an enemy in the past. ⁶ The killer will live in that city until there can be a trial before the community or^[a] until the death of the one who is high priest at that time. Then the killer may return home, back to the city from which the flight began.’”

⁷ So they set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the highlands of Naphtali, Shechem in the highlands of Ephraim, and Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the highlands of Judah. ⁸ On the other side of the Jordan east of Jericho, they set up Bezer in the wasteland 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 cities were the ones designated for all the Israelites and for immigrants residing among them. Anyone who struck down a person by mistake could flee there and escape death at the hand of some member of the victim’s family seeking revenge, until there could be a trial before the community.

Cities for the Levites

21 The heads of the levitical families approached Eleazar the priest, Joshua, Nun’s son, and the heads of the families of the Israelite tribes. ² They spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan: “The Lord gave a command through Moses to give us cities to live in and their pasturelands for our cattle.” ³ So the Israelites gave the Levites the following cities and their pasturelands out of their own legacy. This was in agreement with the Lord’s command.

⁴ The lot went out for the clans of the Kohathites. The descendants of Aaron the priest from among the Levites acquired thirteen cities by lot from the tribes of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin. ⁵ The rest of the descendants of Kohath acquired ten cities by lot from the clans of the tribes of Ephraim, Dan, and half of Manasseh.