Quotes about Community

These six cities will serve as a refuge for the Israelites and for the foreigner or stranger among them, so that anyone who kills a person unintentionally may flee there.

At that time I said to you, “I cannot carry the burden for you alone.

But how can I bear your troubles, burdens, and disputes all by myself?

At that time I charged your judges: “Hear the disputes between your brothers, and judge fairly between a man and his brother or a foreign resident.

But your wives, your children, and your livestock—I know that you have much livestock—may remain in the cities I have given you,

to which a manslayer could flee after killing his neighbor unintentionally without prior malice. To save one’s own life, he could flee to one of these cities:

He did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with all of us who are alive here today.

And you shall rejoice before the LORD your God—you, your sons and daughters, your menservants and maidservants, and the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.

and be careful not to neglect the Levites as long as you live in your land.

If, regarding one of the cities the LORD your God is giving you to inhabit, you hear it said

You are not to eat any carcass; you may give it to the foreigner residing within your gates, and he may eat it, or you may sell it to a foreigner. For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. You must not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk.

And do not neglect the Levite within your gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.