Joshua 20

Berean Standard Bible

Chapter summary

The Lord instructed Joshua to direct the Israelites to designate cities of refuge for anyone who unintentionally kills another person. When a manslayer flees to one of these cities, he must stand at the entrance of the gate, state his case to the elders, and receive a place to live among them. If the avenger of blood pursues him, the city's inhabitants must not surrender him, because the killing was accidental and without prior malice. The fugitive must remain in that city to live until he stands trial before the assembly and until the death of the serving high priest, after which he may return to his home. Accordingly, the Israelites set apart Kedesh, Shechem, and Hebron west of the Jordan, and Bezer, Ramoth, and Golan east of the Jordan. These designated cities served both the Israelites and the foreigners living among them as places to escape the avenger of blood prior to a trial.

Summary automatically generated from the Bible text.

Words of Jesus in red

¹Then the LORD said to Joshua, ²“Tell the Israelites to designate the cities of refuge, as I instructed you through Moses, ³so that anyone who kills another unintentionally or accidentally may flee there. These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood. ⁴When someone flees to one of these cities, stands at the entrance of the city gate, and states his case before its elders, they are to bring him into the city and give him a place to live among them. ⁵Now if the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not surrender the manslayer into his hand, because that man killed his neighbor accidentally without prior malice. ⁶He is to stay in that city until he stands trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest serving at that time. Then the manslayer may return to his own home in the city from which he fled.” ⁷So 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. ⁸And beyond the Jordan, east of Jericho, they designated Bezer on the wilderness plateau from the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead from the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan from the tribe of Manasseh. ⁹These are the cities appointed for all the Israelites and foreigners among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.

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Louis Segond 1910 and Berean Standard Bible: public domain. Cross references: open-cross-ref, Creative Commons BY 4.0.