Joshua 22

Then Joshua called together the sons of Rouben and the sons of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasse,

and said to them: You have heard all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, and you have listened to my voice in all that I commanded you.

You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, up to this day; you have kept the commandment of the Lord your God.

But now the Lord our God has given rest to our brothers, in the manner he said to them. So now turn back and go away to your homes and to the land of your possession, which Moses gave you beyond the Iordanes.

But be exceedingly careful to do the commandments and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded us to do: to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, and to cling to him and to serve him with your whole mind and with your whole soul.

And Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their homes.

And to the half tribe of Manasse Moses gave land in Basanitis, and to the other half Joshua gave land together with their brothers on the far side of the Jordan, by the sea. And when Joshua sent them away to their homes, he also blessed them.

And they went to their homes with much wealth, and very many cattle, and silver and gold and iron and much clothing; and they divided the spoil of their enemies with their brothers.

And the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of the sons of Manasse departed from the sons of Israel, from Shiloh in the land of Chanaan, to go to the land of Galaad, to the land of their possession, which they had inherited by the command of the Lord through the hand of Moses.

And they came to Galgala of the Jordan, which is in the land of Chanaan; and the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben and the half tribe of Manasse built there an altar by the Jordan, a great altar to be seen.

And the sons of Israel heard it said, “Behold, the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben and the half tribe of Manasse have built an altar on the borders of the land of Chanaan, at Galaad of the Jordan, on the side beyond the sons of Israel.”

And all the sons of Israel gathered together at Shiloh, to go up and make war against them.

And the sons of Israel sent to the sons of Reuben and to the sons of Gad and to the half tribe of Manasse, into the land of Galaad, Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the high priest,

and ten of the rulers with him, one ruler from each ancestral house, from all the tribes of Israel; these rulers of ancestral houses are the commanders of thousands of Israel.

And they came to the sons of Gad and to the sons of Reuben and to the half of the tribe of Manasse, into the land of Galaad, and spoke to them, saying:

“Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord: What is this trespass which you have committed before the God of Israel, to turn away this day from the Lord, by building for yourselves an altar, so that you become apostates from the Lord?

Is the sin of Phogor too small a thing for us? For we have not been cleansed from it to this day, and a plague came upon the congregation of the Lord.

And you would turn away this day from the Lord; and it shall be that if you depart today from the Lord, tomorrow the wrath will be upon all Israel.

And now, if the land of your possession is too small for you, cross over into the land of the Lord’s possession, where the tabernacle of the Lord is pitched, and take an inheritance among us; and do not become apostates from God, and do not depart from the Lord by building for yourselves an altar apart from the altar of the Lord our God.

Behold, did not Achar the son of Zara commit a trespass in the matter of the devoted thing, and wrath came upon the whole congregation of Israel? And he was but one man — did he alone die in his own sin?

And the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasse answered and spoke to the commanders of thousands of Israel, saying:

“God, God is the Lord; and God, God the Lord, he himself knows, and Israel itself shall know: if we have trespassed in apostasy before the Lord, may he not deliver us this time.

And if we have built for ourselves an altar so as to turn away from the Lord our God, so as to offer upon it a sacrifice of whole burnt offerings, or to make upon it a sacrifice of deliverance, let the Lord himself require it.

But we did this out of caution concerning a matter, saying: lest tomorrow your children say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?’

And the Lord has set the Jordan as a boundary between us and you; and you have no portion in the Lord. So your sons will estrange our sons, so that they do not revere the Lord.

And we said: Let us do this, to build this altar — not for offerings nor for sacrifices,

but that this may be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we may render service to the Lord before him with our offerings and with our sacrifices and with our sacrifices of deliverance; and your children will not say to our children tomorrow, ‘You have no portion in the Lord.’

And we said: If it should ever happen that they speak to us and to our generations tomorrow, then they shall say, ‘Look at the likeness of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made — not for offerings nor for sacrifices, but it is a witness between you and between us and between our sons.’

Far be it from us, then, to turn away from the Lord in these present days, to depart from the Lord by building an altar for offerings and for salamin sacrifices and for the sacrifice of deliverance, apart from the altar of the Lord which is before his tabernacle.”

And when Phinees the priest and all the rulers of the congregation of Israel who were with him heard the words which the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad and the half tribe of Manasse spoke, it pleased them.

And Phinees the priest said to the sons of Reuben and to the sons of Gad and to the half tribe of Manasse, “Today we know that the Lord is with us, because you have not committed a trespass before the Lord; and you have delivered the sons of Israel out of the hand of the Lord.”

And Phinees the priest and the rulers returned from the sons of Reuben and from the sons of Gad and from the half tribe of Manasse, out of the land of Galaad into the land of Chanaan, to the sons of Israel, and reported the words to them.

And it pleased the sons of Israel, and they spoke to the sons of Israel and blessed the God of the sons of Israel, and said that they would no longer go up against them to war, to destroy the land of the sons of Reuben and of the sons of Gad and of the half tribe of Manasse. And they dwelt upon it.

And Joshua named the altar of the Reubenites and of the Gadites and of the half tribe of Manasse, and said, “It is a witness among them that the Lord is their God.”