1. Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of livestock. They saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead. Behold, the place was a place for livestock.
2. Then the children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spoke to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the princes of the congregation, saying,
3. “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon,
4. the land which the Lord struck before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock; and your servants have livestock.”
5. They said, “If we have found favour in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession. Don’t bring us over the Jordan.”
6. Moses said to the children of Gad, and to the children of Reuben, “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?
7. Why do you discourage the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them?
8. Your fathers did so when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.
9. For when they went up to the valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, that they should not go into the land which the Lord had given them.
10. The Lord’s anger burnt in that day, and he swore, saying,
11. ‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me,
12. except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, because they have followed the Lord completely.’
13. The Lord’s anger burnt against Israel, and he made them wander back and forth in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation who had done evil in the Lord’s sight was consumed.
14. “Behold, you have risen up in your fathers’ place, an increase of sinful men, to increase the fierce anger of the Lord towards Israel.
15. For if you turn away from after him, he will yet again leave them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all these people.”
16. They came near to him, and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones;