17. Wasn’t the offense of Peor enough for us? Even today we still haven’t cleansed ourselves from that sin, when there was a plague on the Lord’s community!
18. Today you are turning away from following the Lord. If you rebel against the Lord today, he will be angry with the entire community of Israel tomorrow.
19. If your own property is unclean land, then cross over into the land of the Lord’s property and settle among us. That’s where the dwelling of the Lord stands. But don’t rebel against the Lord. And don’t involve us in rebellion by building an altar for yourselves other than the altar of the Lord our God.
20. Didn’t Achan, Zerah’s son, do such a disrespectful thing with the items reserved for God? Wrath came on the entire community of Israel. And he wasn’t the only one to die for his crime.’"
21. Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh answered the heads of the military units of Israel:
22. "The Lord is God of gods! The Lord is God of gods! He already knows, and now let Israel also know it! If we acted in rebellion or in disrespect against the Lord, don’t spare us today.
23. If we’ve built ourselves an altar to turn away from following the Lord or to offer on it an entirely burned offering or gift offering, or to perform well-being sacrifices on it, let the Lord himself seek punishment.
24. No! The truth is we did this out of concern for what might happen. In the future your children might say to our children, ‘What have you got to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?
25. The Lord has set the Jordan as a border between us and you people of Reuben and Gad. You have no portion in the Lord!’ So your children might make our children stop worshipping the Lord.
26. As a result we said, ‘Let’s protect ourselves by building an altar. It isn’t to be for an entirely burned offering or for sacrifice.’
27. But it is to be a witness between us and you and between our descendants after us. It witnesses that we too perform the service of the Lord in his presence through our entirely burned offerings, sacrifices, and well-being offerings. So in the future your children could never say to our children, ‘You have no portion in the Lord.’
28. We thought, If in the future they ever say this to us or to our descendants, we could say, ‘Look at this replica of the altar of the Lord that our ancestors made. It isn’t for entirely burned offerings or for sacrifice but to be a witness between us and you.’