God

There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.

And said to them: You have done all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: you have also obeyed me in all things,

Neither have you left your brethren this long time, until this present day, keeping the commandment of the Lord your God.

Therefore as the Lord your God hath given your brethren rest and peace, as he promised: return, and go to your dwellings, and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan:

Yet so that you observe attentively, and in work fulfil the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you: that you love the Lord your God, and walk in all his ways, and keep all his commandments, and cleave to him, and serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul.

So the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasses returned, and parted from the children of Israel in Silo, which is in Chanaan, to go into Galaad the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the commandment of the Lord by the hand of Moses.

Thus saith all the people of the Lord: What meaneth this transgression? Why have you forsaken the Lord the God of Israel, building a sacrilegious altar, and revolting from the worship of him?

Is it a small thing to you that you sinned with Beelphegor, and the stain of that crime remaineth in us to this day? and many of the people perished.

And you have forsaken the Lord to day, and to morrow his wrath will rage against all Israel.

But if you think the land of your possession to be unclean, pass over to the land wherein is the tabernacle of the Lord, and dwell among us: only depart not from the Lord, and from our society, by building an altar beside the altar of the Lord our God.

The Lord the most mighty God, the Lord the most mighty God, he knoweth, and Israel also shall understand: If with the design of transgression we have set up this altar, let him not save us, but punish us immediately:

And if we did it with that mind, that we might lay upon it holocausts, and sacrifice, and victims of peace offerings, let him require and judge:

And not rather with this thought and design, that we should say: To morrow your children will say to our children: What have you to do with the Lord the God of Israel?

The Lord hath put the river Jordan for a border between us and you, O ye children of Ruben, and ye children of Gad: and therefore you have no part in the Lord. And by this occasion your children shall turn away our children from the fear of the Lord. We therefore thought it best,

But for a testimony between us and you, and our posterity and yours, that we may serve the Lord, and that we may have a right to offer both holocausts, and victims and sacrifices of peace offerings: and that your children to morrow may not say to our children: You have no part in the Lord.

And if they will say so, they shall answer them: Behold the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for holocausts, nor for sacrifice, but for a testimony between us and you.

God keep us from any such wickedness that we should revolt from the Lord, and leave off following his steps, by building an altar to offer holocausts, and sacrifices, and victims, beside the altar of the Lord our God, which is erected before his tabernacle.

And Phinees the priest the son of Eleazar said to them: Now we know that the Lord is with us, because you are not guilty of this revolt, and you have delivered the children of Israel from the hand of the Lord.

And the saying pleased all that heard it. And the children of Israel praised God, and they no longer said that they would go up against them, and fight, and destroy the land of their possession.

And the children of Ruben, and the children of Gad called the altar which they had built, Our testimony, that the Lord is God,

And when a long time was passed, after that the Lord had given peace to Israel, all the nations round about being subdued. and Joshua being now old, and far advanced in years:

And you see all that the Lord your God hath done to all the nations round about, how he himself hath fought for you:

The Lord your God will destroy them, and take them away from before your face, and you shall possess the land as he hath promised you.

But cleave ye unto the Lord your God, as you have done until this day.

And then the Lord God will take away before your eyes nations that are great and very strong, and no man shall be able to resist you.