19. Your land may not be a good enough place to worship. If not, come over into our land. The Lord’s Tent is in our land. You may have some of our land and live there. But don’t turn against the Lord by building another altar. We already have the altar of the Lord our God.
20. Remember Achan son of Zerah. He refused to obey the command about what must be completely destroyed. That one man broke God’s law, but all the Israelites were punished. Achan died because of his sin. But many other people also died.’”
21. The people from Reuben, Gad and the eastern half-tribe of Manasseh answered them. They said:
22. “The Lord is our God! Again we say that the Lord is our God! God knows why we did this. We want you to know also. You can judge what we did. If you believe we have done something wrong, you may kill us.