Joshua 22:5-34

⁵so only that ye keep busily, and ful fill in work the commandment and the law, which law Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded to you; that ye love your Lord God, and go in all his ways, and keep his behests, and cleave to him, and serve him in all your heart, and in all your soul.

⁶And Joshua blessed them, and let them go, which turned again into their tabernacles.

⁷Soothly Moses had given pos-session in Bashan to the half lineage of Manasseh; and therefore to the half lineage that was left over, Joshua gave part among their other brethren beyond Jordan, at the west coast thereof. And when Joshua let them go into their tabernacles, and had blessed them,

⁸he said to them, With much cattle and riches turn ye again to your seats; with silver and gold, and brass, and iron, and with much clothing; part ye the prey of the enemies with your brethren.

⁹And the sons of Reuben, and the sons of Gad, and the half lineage of Manasseh turned again, and went from the sons of Israel from Shiloh, which is set in the land of Canaan, that they should enter into Gilead, the land of their possession, which they got by the commandment of the Lord in the hand of Moses.

¹⁰And when they had come to the terms of Jordan, into the land of Canaan, they builded beside Jordan an altar of greatest sight.

¹¹And when the sons of Israel had heard this, and certain messengers had told to them, that the sons of Reuben, and of Gad, and the half lineage of Manasseh, had builded an altar in the land of Canaan, on the heaps of Jordan, against the sons of Israel,

¹²all they came together in Shiloh, that they should go up, and fight against them.

¹³And in the meantime, they sent to them into the land of Gilead, Phinehas, the priest, the son of Eleazar,

¹⁴and ten princes with him; of each lineage one prince.

¹⁵The which came to the sons of Reuben, and of Gad, and to the half lineage of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, and they said to them,

¹⁶All the people of the Lord sendeth to you, these things; What is this trespassing? Why have ye forsaken the Lord God of Israel, and have builded a cursed altar, and have gone away from the worshipping of him?

¹⁷Whether the sin of Peor is little to you, of which we be not clean till to this day, and many of the people felled down?

¹⁸And today ye have forsaken the Lord, and tomorrow, that is, in time to coming, the ire or wrath of him shall be fierce against all Israel.

¹⁹That if ye guess that the land of your possession is unclean, pass ye to the land, in which the tabernacle of the Lord is, and dwell ye among us, only that ye go not away from the Lord, and from our fellowship, by an altar builded beside the altar of our Lord God.

²⁰Whether not Achan, the son of Zerah, trespassed the commandment of the Lord, and his ire felled on all the people of Israel? And he was one man; and we would that he alone had perished in his trespass.

²¹And the sons of Reuben, and of Gad, and of half the lineage of Manasseh, answered to the princes of the message of Israel,

²²The strongest Lord God himself of Israel knoweth, and Israel shall understand altogether;

²³if we builded this altar for intent of trespassing, that is, of idolatry, the Lord keep not us, but punish he us in this present time; and if we did by that mind, that we should put thereon burnt sacrifices, and sacrifice, and peaceable sacrifices, he seek, and deem;

²⁴and not more, rather, we did it with this thinking and treating, that we should say thus, Your sons here-after shall say to our sons, What is to you and to the Lord God of Israel? or, What claim ye to be of his people?

²⁵O! ye sons of Reuben, and ye sons of Gad, the Lord hath set a term, the flood Jordan, betwixt us and you; and therefore ye have no part in the Lord; and by this occasion your sons shall turn away our sons from the dread of the Lord.

²⁶Therefore we guessed better, and we said, Build we an altar to us, not into burnt sacrifices, neither to sacrifices to be offered,

²⁷but into witnessing betwixt us and you, and betwixt our children and your generation, that we serve the Lord, and that it be of our right to offer burnt sacrifices, and sacrifices, and peaceable sacrifices; and that your sons say not tomorrow to our sons, No part in the Lord is to you.

²⁸And if your sons will say this, our sons shall answer them, Lo! the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not into burnt sacrifices, neither into slain sacrifices, but into our and your witnessing everlasting.

²⁹Far be this trespass from us, that we go away from the Lord, and forsake his steps, by an altar builded to burnt sacrifices, and slain sacrifices, and sacrifices of praising to be offered thereon, besides the altar of the Lord our God, that is builded before his tabernacle.

³⁰And when these things were heard, Phinehas, the priest, and the princes of the message of Israel, that were with him, were pleased; and they received gladly the words of the sons of Reuben, and of Gad, and of the half lineage of Manasseh.

³¹And Phinehas, the priest, the son of Eleazar, said to them, Now we know, that the Lord is with you; for ye be alien, or guiltless, from this trespassing, and ye have delivered the sons of Israel from the hand, or punishing, of the Lord.

³²And Phinehas turned again with the princes from the sons of Reuben and of Gad, from the land of Gilead to the coast of Canaan, to the sons of Israel; and he told these things to them.

³³And the word pleased to all men hearing it; and the sons of Israel praised God, and said, that they would no more ascend or go up against them, and fight, and do away the land of their possession.

³⁴And the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad called the altar, which they had builded, Our Witnessing that the Lord Himself is God.