21. The Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh replied to the heads of the Israelite clans:
22. “The Lord is the God of gods. The Lord, the God of gods, knows and Israel shall know. If now we have acted out of rebellion or treachery against the Lord, our God, do not try to save us this day,
23. and if we have built an altar of our own to turn from following the Lord, or to sacrifice burnt offerings, grain offerings, or communion sacrifices upon it, the Lord himself will exact the penalty.
24. We did it rather out of our anxious concern lest in the future your children should say to our children: ‘What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?
25. For the Lord has placed the Jordan as a boundary between you and us, you Reubenites and Gadites. You have no share in the Lord.’ Thus your children would prevent ours from revering the Lord.
26. So we thought, ‘Let us act for ourselves by building this altar of our own’—not for burnt offerings or sacrifice,
27. but as witness between us and you and our descendants, that we have the right to provide for the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and communion sacrifices. Now in the future your children cannot say to our children, ‘You have no share in the Lord.’
28. Our thought was that, if in the future they should speak thus to us or to our descendants, we could answer: ‘Look at the copy of the altar of the Lord which our ancestors made, not for burnt offerings or for sacrifices, but to witness between you and us.’
29. Far be it from us to rebel against the Lord or to turn now from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice in addition to the altar of the Lord, our God, which stands before his tabernacle.”
30. When Phinehas the priest and the leaders of the community, the heads of the Israelite clans, heard what the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the Manassites had to say, they were satisfied.
31. Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, said to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the Manassites, “Today we know that the Lord is in our midst. Since you have not rebelled against the Lord by this act of treachery, you have delivered the Israelites from the hand of the Lord.”
32. Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, and the leaders returned from the Reubenites and the Gadites in the land of Gilead to the Israelites in the land of Canaan, and reported the matter to them.
33. The report satisfied the Israelites, who blessed God and decided not to take military action against the Reubenites and Gadites nor to ravage the land where they lived.
34. The Reubenites and the Gadites gave the altar its name as a witness among them that the Lord is God.