and they commanded the people, saying, "When you see the ark of the covenant of Yahweh your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then you shall move from your place, and follow it.

All Israel, and their elders and officers, and their judges, stood on this side of the ark and on that side before the priests the Levites, who carried the ark of Yahweh's covenant, the foreigner as well as the native; half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of Yahweh had commanded at the first, that they should bless the people of Israel.

For Moses had given the inheritance of the two tribes and the half-tribe beyond the Jordan; but to the Levites he gave no inheritance among them.

For the children of Joseph were two tribes, Manasseh and Ephraim: and they gave no portion to the Levites in the land, except cities to dwell in, with their suburbs for their livestock and for their property.

For the Levites have no portion among you; for the priesthood of Yahweh is their inheritance. Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of Yahweh gave them."

Then the heads of fathers' houses of the Levites came near to Eleazar the priest, and to Joshua the son of Nun, and to the heads of fathers' houses of the tribes of the children of Israel.

The children of Israel gave to the Levites out of their inheritance, according to the commandment of Yahweh, these cities with their suburbs.

The lot came out for the families of the Kohathites. The children of Aaron the priest, who were of the Levites, had thirteen cities by lot out of the tribe of Judah, out of the tribe of the Simeonites, and out of the tribe of Benjamin.

The children of Israel gave these cities with their suburbs by lot to the Levites, as Yahweh commanded by Moses.

The families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, even the rest of the children of Kohath, had the cities of their lot out of the tribe of Ephraim.

They gave to the children of Gershon, of the families of the Levites, out of the half-tribe of Manasseh Golan in Bashan with its suburbs, the city of refuge for the manslayer, and Be Eshterah with its suburbs; two cities.

To the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, out of the tribe of Zebulun, Jokneam with its suburbs, Kartah with its suburbs,

All these were the cities of the children of Merari according to their families, even the rest of the families of the Levites. Their lot was twelve cities.

All the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the children of Israel were forty-eight cities with their suburbs.