24. We actually did this from a specific concern that in the future your descendants might say to our descendants, ‘What relationship do you have with the Lord, the God of Israel?
25. For the Lord has made the Jordan a border between us and you descendants of Reuben and Gad. You have no share in the Lord! ’ So your descendants may cause our descendants to stop fearing the Lord.
26. “Therefore we said: Let us take action and build an altar for ourselves, but not for burnt offering or sacrifice.
27. Instead, it is to be a witness between us and you, and between the generations after us, so that we may carry out the worship of the Lord in His presence with our burnt offerings, sacrifices, and fellowship offerings. Then in the future, your descendants will not be able to say to our descendants, ‘You have no share in the Lord! ’
28. We thought that if they said this to us or to our generations in the future, we would reply: Look at the replica of the Lord’s altar that our fathers made, not for burnt offering or sacrifice, but as a witness between us and you.
29. We would never rebel against the Lord or turn away from Him today by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice, other than the altar of the Lord our God, which is in front of His tabernacle.”
30. When Phinehas the priest and the community leaders, the heads of Israel’s clans who were with him, heard what the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had to say, they were pleased.
31. Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, “Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not committed this treachery against Him. As a result, you have delivered the Israelites from the Lord’s power.”
32. Then Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest and the leaders returned from the Reubenites and Gadites in the land of Gilead to the Israelites in the land of Canaan and brought back a report to them.
33. The Israelites were pleased with the report, and they praised God. They spoke no more about going to war against them to ravage the land where the Reubenites and Gadites lived.
34. So the Reubenites and Gadites named the altar: It is a witness between us that the Lord is God.