The men of the tribes east of the Jordan River go home
1Then Joshua called the men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. 2He said to them: ‘You have done everything that Moses, the servant of the Lord, told you to do and you have always listened to me. 3You have stayed here all the time. You did not leave your brothers and you did what the Lord wanted. 4The Lord your God has helped the other Israelites to defeat all their enemies, as He promised them. Now you can go back to your homes in your land, the land east of the Jordan River. This is the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you. 5But you must remember to make sure that you do what the commandments and laws of the Lord say, the laws that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you. You must love the Lord your God, you must live as He wants you to live, and you must do what his commandments say. You must continue to serve Him with all your heart.’
6Joshua blessed them and he sent them away. They went to their homes. 7Moses gave land to one half of the Manasseh tribe in the land of Bashan and Joshua gave land to the other half of the tribe among the Israelites, west of the Jordan River. Before Joshua sent them home, he blessed them. 8He said to them: ‘You may go back to your homes with the plunder that you took from the enemies, all the cattle, the sheep and goats, the silver and gold and bronze and iron and clothes. But you must give some of it to the other people in your tribes.’
The altar at the Jordan River
9Then the men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh left. They went away from the Israelites in the town of Shiloh in the land of Canaan and they went home. They went to Gilead, to the land that belonged to them. The Lord had told Moses that they must have that land. 10They came to the town of Geliloth near the Jordan River, in the land of Canaan. Then the men of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar. It was a big altar. 11People told the other Israelites that the men of the 2 and a half tribes had built an altar near the border of the land of Canaan, at the town of Geliloth near the Jordan River. It was near the land of the other Israelites.
12When they told the Israelites that they had built an altar, all the people of the congregation of Israel came together at the town of Shiloh to go to war_against the 2 and a half tribes. 13But the Israelites first sent Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, to the 2 and a half tribes of the land of Gilead. 14There were 10 leaders who went with Phinehas. They were leaders from each of the 10 tribes and leaders of the families in Israel. 15When they came to the 2 and a half tribes in the land of Gilead, they said to them: 16‘The congregation of the Lord asks: Why did you turn away from the God of Israel? You turned away from the Lord when you built an altar for yourselves. You have rebelled_against Him. 17We sinned a lot in the town of Peor, and up to today we are not purified of that sin. The Lord punished the congregation for it 18and today you have turned away from the Lord. You have rebelled_against the Lord, and tomorrow He will be angry with all the people of the congregation of Israel. 19If your land is impure, then you must come back to the land that belongs to the Lord, the land where the tent of the Lord is, and take some of the land among us. But you must not rebel_against the Lord and against us. You may not build your own altar that is not an altar for the Lord, our God. 20You must remember what happened when Achan, son of Zerah, turned away from the Lord and took things that were consecrated to the Lord. The Lord did not cause him alone to die for his sin. No, the Lord was angry with all of the Israelites.’
21The people of the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh answered the leaders of the families of Israel and said: 22‘The Lord is the God of all the gods, the Lord is the God of all the gods. He knows, and you must know why we have built this altar. We did not do it because we want to rebel_against the Lord or because we want to turn away from Him. If you think we have done wrong, then you can kill us today. 23The Lord, Himself, will punish us if we have built an altar to stop serving Him. We did not build this altar to sacrifice burnt-offerings, or grain-offerings or to sacrifice meal-offerings on it.
24No, we have built this altar because we are worried. We are worried that in the future your children will say to our children: “You do not belong to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 25Maybe your children will say that the Lord has put a border between us, the Jordan River, and they might say that our children do not belong to the Lord. Then your children will stop our children from serving the Lord. 26That is why we thought we must build an altar. We do not want to sacrifice burnt-offerings and other offerings on this altar. 27No, this altar will be a witness between you and us, between your children and our children. This altar must be the witness that we will keep on serving the Lord at his altar with our burnt-offerings, other offerings and our meal-offerings. Then your children will not say that our children do not belong to the Lord. 28But if they say to our children that they do not belong to the Lord, then our children can say to them: “Look, there is the altar that our fathers have built. It looks like the Lord's altar. But we do not sacrifice burnt-offerings and other offerings on this altar. No, this altar is the witness between you and us.” 29We do not want to rebel_against the Lord and we will not stop serving Him. The altar of our God, the Lord, is in front of the tent of the Lord and we have not built this altar to sacrifice burnt-offerings and grain-offerings.’
30When the priest Phinehas and the leaders of the families of Israel heard what the people of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh said, they were not angry anymore. 31Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, then said to the people of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh: ‘We now know that the Lord is with us, because you did not do wrong. You did not turn away from the Lord when you built this altar. Therefore the Lord will not punish the Israelites.’
32Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, and the leaders of the tribes went away from the tribes in the land of Gilead. They went home to the other Israelites and told them what those tribes had told them. 33The Israelites were happy and they praised God. They decided not to go to war_against those tribes and not to destroy the land where they lived. 34The people of Reuben and Gad named the altar, they said the name was: ‘This altar is a witness between us that the Lord is God’.
