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BibleCompass

/Chapter 22

22 / 24

Joshua

ESV

Chapter 22

¹At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, ²and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you. ³You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, up to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD your God. ⁴And now the LORD your God has given rest to your brothers, as he promised them. Therefore turn now and go to your homes in the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan. ⁵Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” ⁶So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their homes. ⁷Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh Moses had given a possession in Bashan, but to the other half Joshua had given a possession among their brothers on the west side of the Jordan. And when Joshua sent them away to their homes and blessed them, ⁸he said to them, “Return to your tents with much wealth, with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with very much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brothers.” ⁹So the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned home, parting from the people of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, their own land, which they had possessed by command of the LORD through Moses. ¹⁰And when they came to the region of the Jordan that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, a great altar, conspicuous to the eye. ¹¹And the people of Israel heard it said, “Behold, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have built an altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region of the Jordan, on the side belonging to the people of Israel.” ¹²And when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them. ¹³Then the people of Israel sent to the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, ¹⁴and with him ten chiefs, one from each of the tribal families of Israel, every one of them the head of a family among the clans of Israel. ¹⁵And they came to the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in the land of Gilead, and they said to them, ¹⁶“Thus says the whole congregation of the LORD, ‘What is this treachery that you have committed against the God of Israel in turning away this day from following the LORD by building yourselves an altar this day in rebellion against the LORD? ¹⁷Have we not had enough of the sin at Peor from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, and yet came there a plague on the congregation of the LORD, ¹⁸that you too must turn away this day from following the LORD? And if you rebel against the LORD today, then tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. ¹⁹But now, if the land of your possession is unclean, pass over into the land of the possession of the LORD, where the LORD’s tabernacle stands, and take for yourselves a possession among us. Only do not rebel against the LORD or make us as rebels by building yourselves an altar other than the altar of the LORD our God. ²⁰Did not Achan the son of Zerah break faith in the matter of the devoted things, and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel? And he did not perish alone for his iniquity.’” ²¹Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh answered and said to the heads of the families of Israel, ²²“The Mighty One, God, the LORD! The Mighty One, God, the LORD! He knows, and may Israel itself know! If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the LORD, do not spare us today ²³for building an altar to turn away from following the LORD. Or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings on it, may the LORD himself take vengeance. ²⁴No, but we did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, ‘What have you to do with the LORD, the God of Israel? ²⁵For the LORD has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you people of Reuben and people of Gad. You have no portion in the LORD.’ So your children might make our children cease to worship the LORD. ²⁶Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, ²⁷but to be a witness between us and you and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the LORD in his presence with our burnt offerings, with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings, so that your children may not say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in the LORD.”’ ²⁸And we thought, ‘If in time to come they should say this to us or to our descendants, we will say, “Behold the copy of the altar of the LORD, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifice, but in witness between us and you.”’ ²⁹Far be it from us that we should rebel against the LORD and turn away this day from following the LORD by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice, other than the altar of the LORD our God that is before his tabernacle.” ³⁰When Phinehas the priest and the chiefs of the congregation, the heads of the families of Israel who were with him, heard the words that the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the people of Manasseh spoke, it was good in their eyes. ³¹And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the people of Manasseh, “Today we know that the LORD is among us, because you have not committed this treachery against the LORD. Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the hand of the LORD.” ³²Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest and the chiefs returned from the people of Reuben and the people of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan, to the people of Israel, and brought them word again. ³³And the report was good in the eyes of the people of Israel. And the people of Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them, to destroy the land in which the people of Reuben and the people of Gad were living. ³⁴The people of Reuben and the people of Gad called the altar Witness, “For,” they said, “it is a witness between us that the LORD is God.”