11 You should choose cities convenient for yourselves to serve as cities of refuge, where the manslayer who unintentionally kills someone* should flee.+

22 “‘But if it was unexpectedly and not out of hatred that he pushed him or threw any article at him without malicious intent,*+ 23 or if he did not see him and caused a stone to fall on him and he was not an enemy or seeking his injury, and the person died, 24 the assembly should then judge between the one who struck him and the avenger of blood, in harmony with these judgments.+ 25 The assembly should then save the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood and return him to his city of refuge to which he had fled, and he must dwell in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil.+

42 If any manslayer unintentionally kills his fellow man and he did not previously hate him,+ he must flee to one of these cities and live.+

3 You should divide the territory of the land that Jehovah your God has given you to possess into three parts, and prepare the roads so that any manslayer can flee to one of those cities.

4 “Now this is what should take place regarding the manslayer who may flee there in order to live: When he strikes his fellow man unintentionally and he did not previously hate him;+ 5 as when he goes with his fellow man into the forest to gather wood and he raises his hand to cut the tree with the ax, but the axhead flies off the handle and hits his fellow man and he dies, the manslayer should flee to one of these cities to live.+

7 So they gave a sacred status to* Keʹdesh+ in Galʹi·lee in the mountainous region of Naphʹta·li, Sheʹchem+ in the mountainous region of Eʹphra·im, and Kirʹi·ath-arʹba,+ that is, Hebʹron, in the mountainous region of Judah. 8 In the region of the Jordan, east of Jerʹi·cho, they selected Beʹzer+ in the wilderness on the tableland* out of the tribe of Reuʹben, Raʹmoth+ in Gilʹe·ad out of the tribe of Gad, and Goʹlan+ in Baʹshan out of the tribe of Ma·nasʹseh.+

9 These became the cities appointed for all the Israelites and for the foreign residents residing among them, so that anyone who unintentionally killed someone* could flee there+ and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood prior to standing trial before the assembly.+