1. 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.
6. The descendants of Gershon acquired thirteen cities by lot from the clans of the tribes of Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, and the half of Manasseh located in Bashan.
7. The descendants of Merari acquired twelve cities for their clans from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Zebulun.
8. So the Israelites gave these cities and their pasturelands to the Levites by lot, exactly as the Lord had commanded through Moses.
9. They gave the following cities, identified here by name, from the tribe of the Judahites and the tribe of the Simeonites.
10. The cities belonged to the descendants of Aaron, one of the Kohathite clans of the Levites, because the lot had fallen to them first.
11. They gave them Kiriath-arba (that is, Hebron) in the highlands of Judah and the pastures around it. (Arba was the father of Anak.)
12. But they had already given the fields of the city and its surrounding areas to Caleb, Jephunneh’s son, as his property.
13. To the descendants of Aaron the priest they gave: Hebron, the refuge city for a killer, and its pastures; Libnah and its pastures;
14. Jattir and its pastures; Eshtemoa and its pastures;
15. Holon and its pastures; Debir and its pastures;
16. Ain and its pastures; Juttah and its pastures; and Beth-shemesh and its pastures. Total from these two tribes: nine cities.
17. From the tribe of Benjamin: Gibeon and its pastures, Geba and its pastures,