Numbers 35:11

11 athen you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there.

Deuteronomy 4:41-43

Cities of Refuge

41Then Moses bset apart three cities in the east beyond the Jordan, 42that cthe manslayer might flee there, anyone who kills his neighbor unintentionally, without being at enmity with him in time past; he may flee to one of these cities and save his life: 43 dBezer in the wilderness on the etableland for the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead for the Gadites, and Golan in Bashan for the Manassites.

Deuteronomy 19:1-3

Laws Concerning Cities of Refuge

1“When fthe Lord your God cuts off the nations whose land the Lord your God is giving you, and you dispossess them and dwell in their cities and in their houses, 2 gyou shall set apart three cities for yourselves in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. 3You shall measure the distances
Hebrew road
and divide into three parts the area of the land that the Lord your God gives you as a possession, so that any manslayer can flee to them.

Deuteronomy 19:9

9provided you are careful to keep all this commandment, which I command you today, by loving the Lord your God and by walking ever in his waysithen you shall add three other cities to these three,

Joshua 20:2-9

2Say to the people of Israel, jAppoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, 3that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there. They shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood. 4He shall flee to one of these cities and shall stand kat the entrance of the gate of the city and explain his case to the elders of that city. Then they shall take him into the city and give him a place, and he shall remain with them. 5And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly, and did not hate him in the past. 6And he shall remain in that city luntil he has stood before the congregation for judgment, until the death of him who is high priest at the time. Then the manslayer may return to his own town and his own home, to the town from which he fled.’”

7So they set apart mKedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, and nShechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and oKiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) pin the hill country of Judah. 8And beyond the Jordan east of Jericho, they appointed qBezer in the wilderness on the tableland, from the tribe of Reuben, and rRamoth in Gilead, from the tribe of Gad, and sGolan in Bashan, from the tribe of Manasseh. 9These were the cities designated for all the people of Israel and tfor the stranger sojourning among them, that anyone who killed a person without intent could flee there, so that he might not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, till he stood before the congregation.

Copyright information for ESV