Bible Verses About Avenger of Blood

The LORD spoke to Joshua, saying,

“Speak to the children of Israel, saying, ‘Assign the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you by Moses,

that the man slayer who kills any person accidentally or unintentionally may flee there. They shall be to you for a refuge from the avenger of blood.

He shall flee to one of those cities, and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city, and declare his cause in the ears of the elders of that city. They shall take him into the city with them, and give him a place, that he may live among them.

If the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they shall not deliver up the man slayer into his hand; because he struck his neighbor unintentionally, and didn’t hate him before.

He shall dwell in that city until he stands before the congregation for judgment, until the death of the high priest that shall be in those days. Then the man slayer shall return, and come to his own city, and to his own house, to the city he fled from.’”

They set apart Kedesh in Galilee in the hill country of Naphtali, Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and Kiriath Arba (the same is Hebron) in the hill country of Judah.

Beyond the Jordan at Jericho eastward, they assigned Bezer in the wilderness in the plain out of the tribe of Reuben, Ramoth in Gilead out of the tribe of Gad, and Golan in Bashan out of the tribe of Manasseh.

These were the appointed cities for all the children of Israel, and for the alien who lives among them, that whoever kills any person unintentionally might flee there, and not die by the hand of the avenger of blood, until he stands before the congregation.

When the woman of Tekoa spoke to the king, she fell on her face to the ground, showed respect, and said, “Help, O king!”

The king said to her, “What ails you?” She answered, “Truly I am a widow, and my husband is dead.

Your handmaid had two sons, and they both fought together in the field, and there was no one to part them, but the one struck the other, and killed him.

Behold, the whole family has risen against your handmaid, and they say, ‘Deliver him who struck his brother, that we may kill him for the life of his brother whom he killed, and so destroy the heir also.’ Thus they would quench my coal which is left, and would leave to my husband neither name nor remainder on the surface of the earth.”

The king said to the woman, “Go to your house, and I will give a command concerning you.”

The woman of Tekoa said to the king, “My lord, O king, the iniquity be on me, and on my father’s house; and the king and his throne be guiltless.”

The king said, “Whoever says anything to you, bring him to me, and he shall not touch you any more.”

Then she said, “Please let the king remember the LORD your God, that the avenger of blood destroy not any more, lest they destroy my son.” He said, “As the LORD lives, not one hair of your son shall fall to the earth.”