5. They said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as property; do not lead us across the Jordan.”
6. But Moses said to the descendants of Gad and to the descendants of Reuben, “Will your brothers go to war while you yourselves live here?
7. Why are you discouraging the hearts of the Israelites from crossing into the land that Yahweh gave to them?
8. This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
9. When they went up to the valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the Israelites so that they did not come to the land that Yahweh gave to them.
10. So Yahweh’s anger burned on that day, and he swore an oath, saying,
11. ‘The men who went up from Egypt, from those twenty years old and above, will not see the land that I swore with an oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because they have not wholly followed me,
12. except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, because they followed Yahweh wholly.’
13. And Yahweh became angry, and he made them wander in the desert forty years until the entire generation who did evil in the sight of Yahweh had died.
14. Behold, you stand in the place of your fathers, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more Yahweh’s fierce anger against Israel.
15. If you turn from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you would have destroyed all these people.”
16. They came near to him and said, “We will build sheep pens here for the flock of our livestock and cities for our little children;
17. but we ourselves will become armed and ready before the Israelites until we have brought them to their place, and our little children will live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land.
18. We will not return to our houses until the Israelites each obtain their inheritance for themselves.
19. For we will not take possession with them from across the Jordan and beyond because our inheritance has come to us from across the Jordan to the east.”
20. So Moses said to them, “If you do this thing, if you arm yourselves before Yahweh for the war,
21. and everyone of you armed cross the Jordan before Yahweh until he has driven out his enemies from before him,
22. and the land is subdued before Yahweh, then afterward you will return and be free of obligation from Yahweh and from Israel, and this land will be your property before Yahweh.
23. But if you do not do so, behold, you have sinned against Yahweh, and know that your sin will find you.
24. Build for yourselves cities for your little children and sheep pens for your flocks; what has gone out from your mouth you will do.”