4. the land which the Lord has laid low before the community of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.”
5. They continued, “If we find favor with you, let this land be given to your servants as their possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”
6. But Moses answered the Gadites and Reubenites: “Are your kindred, then, to go to war, while you remain here?
7. Why do you wish to discourage the Israelites from crossing to the land the Lord has given them?
8. That is just what your ancestors did when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to reconnoiter the land.
9. They went up to the Wadi Eshcol and reconnoitered the land, then so discouraged the Israelites that they would not enter the land the Lord had given them.
10. At that time the anger of the Lord flared up, and he swore:
11. None of the men twenty years old or more who have come up from Egypt will see the land I promised under oath to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, because they have not followed me unreservedly—
12. except the Kenizzite Caleb, son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua, son of Nun, since they have followed the Lord unreservedly.
13. So the anger of the Lord flared up against the Israelites and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord had disappeared.
14. And now here you are, offspring of sinful stock, rising up in your ancestors’ place to add still more to the Lord’s blazing anger against the Israelites.
15. If you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will bring about the ruin of this entire people.”
16. But they approached him and said: “We will only build sheepfolds here for our flocks and towns for our families;
17. but we ourselves will march as troops in the vanguard before the Israelites, until we have led them to their destination. Meanwhile our families will remain in the fortified towns because of the land’s inhabitants.
18. We will not return to our homes until all the Israelites have taken possession of their heritage.
19. But we will not claim any heritage with them across the Jordan and beyond, because we have received a heritage for ourselves on the eastern side of the Jordan.”
20. Moses said to them in reply: “If you do this—if you march as troops before the Lord into battle
21. and cross the Jordan in full force before the Lord until he has driven his enemies out of his way
22. and the land is subdued before the Lord, then you may return here, free from every obligation to the Lord and to Israel, and this land will be your possession before the Lord.
23. But if you do not do this, you will have sinned against the Lord, and you can be sure that the consequences of your sin will overtake you.