CHAPTER 22

¹Then did Joshua call to the Reubenites and the Gadites and to the half-tribe of Manesseh, ²and he said to them, “You have kept all that Moses, servant of the LORD, charged you, and you have heeded my voice in all that I have charged you. ³You have not forsaken your brothers for many days until this day, and you have kept the watch of the LORD your God. ⁴And now the LORD your God has granted rest to your brothers, as He had spoken to them, so now turn and go off to your tents, to the land of your holding that Moses, servant of the LORD, gave to you across the Jordan. ⁵Only watch carefully to do the command and the teaching that Moses, servant of the LORD, charged you, to love the LORD your God and to walk in all His ways, to keep His commands and to cling to Him and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your being.” ⁶And Joshua blessed them and sent them off, and they went to their tents. ⁷And to the half-tribe of Manasseh Moses had given land in Bashan, and to the other half Joshua gave land with their brothers west of the Jordan. And what’s more, when Joshua sent them off to their tents and blessed them, ⁸he said to them, saying, “With many possessions return to your tents and with very abundant livestock, with silver and with gold and with bronze and with iron and with a great many cloaks. Share the booty of your enemies with your brothers.” ⁹And the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh turned back and went from Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, to the land of their holding in which they had taken hold at the behest of the LORD through Moses. ¹⁰And they came to the Jordan districts that are in the land of Canaan, and the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there a great altar to be seen by all. ¹¹And the Israelites heard, saying, “Look, the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh have built an altar over against the land of Canaan in the Jordan districts across from the Israelites.” ¹²And the Israelites heard, and all the community of the Israelites assembled at Shiloh to go up against them as an army. ¹³And the Israelites sent Phineas son of Eleazar the priest to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the half-tribe of Manasseh, ¹⁴and ten chieftains were with him, one chieftain for a patriarchal house for each of the tribes of Israel, each the head of a patriarchal house for the clan-groups of Israel. ¹⁵And they came to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the half-tribe of Manasseh and spoke with them, saying: ¹⁶“Thus said the whole community of the LORD: ‘What is this violation that you have committed against the God of Israel, to turn back today from the LORD by building for yourselves an altar to rebel today against the LORD? ¹⁷Is the crime of Peor, from which we have not been cleansed to this day, too little for us, as the scourge came upon the community of the LORD? ¹⁸As for you, you turn back today from the LORD, and it will happen that should you rebel today against the LORD, tomorrow His fury will be against the whole community of Israel. ¹⁹And if indeed the land of your holding is unclean, cross over to the land of the LORD’s holding where the LORD’s sanctuary dwells and take a holding within it, but do not rebel against the LORD, and against us do not rebel, in your building yourselves an altar other than the altar of the LORD our God. ²⁰Did not Achan son of Zerah violate the ban, and the fury was against the whole community of Israel while he, a single man, did not perish through his crime?’” ²¹And the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered and spoke to the heads of the clan-groups of Israel: ²²“God of gods is the LORD. God of gods is the LORD! He knows, and Israel shall know. If in rebellion and in violation against the LORD, ²³to build us an altar to turn back from the LORD, do not rescue us this day. And if to offer up on it burnt offering and grain offering, and if to prepare on it well-being offerings—let the LORD seek it out. ²⁴Or if not from concern for one thing we have done this, saying, ‘Tomorrow your sons will say to our sons, saying, What do you have to do with the LORD God of Israel, ²⁵when the LORD has fixed a boundary, the Jordan, between you and us, O Reubenites and Gadites? You have no share in the LORD.’ And your children will prevent our children from fearing the LORD. ²⁶And so we thought, ‘Let us act, pray, to build an altar not for burnt offerings and not for sacrifices, ²⁷but let it be a witness between you and us and for our generations after us to do the service of the LORD before Him with our burnt offerings and our sacrifices and our well-being offerings, that your children say not tomorrow to our children, You have no share in the LORD.’ ²⁸And we thought, when it happens that our generations tomorrow say to us, we shall say, ‘See the image of the LORD’s altar that your forefathers made, not for burnt offerings and not for sacrifices but as a witness between you and us. ²⁹Far be it from us to rebel against the LORD and to turn back today from the LORD to build an altar for burnt offerings and for grain offerings and for sacrifice other than the altar of the LORD our God which is before His sanctuary.’” ³⁰And Phineas the priest, and the chieftains of the community and the heads of the clan-groups of Israel with him, heard what the Reubenites and the Gadites and the Manassites had spoken, and it was good in their eyes. ³¹And Phineas son of Eleazar the priest said to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the Manassites, “Today we know that the LORD is in our midst, for you have not committed this violation against the LORD, and so you have saved the Israelites from the LORD’s hand.” ³²And Phineas son of Eleazar the priest, and the chieftains with him, turned back from the Reubenites and from the Gadites, from the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan, to the Israelites, and they brought back word to them. ³³And the thing was good in the eyes of the Israelites, and the Israelites blessed God, and they did not think to go up as an army to lay ruin to the land in which the Reubenites and the Gadites were dwelling. ³⁴And the Reubenites and the Gadites called the altar Witness, “for it is a witness among us that the LORD is God.”