How beautiful is the person who comes over the mountains to bring good news, who announces peace and brings good news, who announces salvation and says to Jerusalem, “Your God is King.”
“Run for your lives, people of Benjamin! Run away from Jerusalem! Blow the war trumpet in the town of Tekoa! Raise the warning flag over the town of Beth Hakkerem! Disaster is coming from the north; terrible destruction is coming to you.
From the land of Dan, the snorting of the enemy’s horses is heard. The ground shakes from the neighing of their large horses. They have come and destroyed the land and everything in it, the city and all who live there.”
And Joshua answered them, “If you have too many people, go up to the forest and make a place for yourselves to live there in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaites. The mountain country of Ephraim is too small for you.”
So the Israelites chose these cities to be cities of safety: Kedesh in Galilee in the mountains of Naphtali; Shechem in the mountains of Ephraim; Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron) in the mountains of Judah;