¹⁹ But all the leaders said to all the congregation, “We have sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel, and now we may not touch them.

² I say:^[a] Keep the king's command, because of ^(A)God's oath to him.^[b]

^2 (A)It is the same for all, since ^(B)the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,^[a] to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner, and he who ^(C)swears is as he who shuns an oath.

²⁰ This we will do to them: let them live, lest ^(A)wrath be upon us, ^(B)because of the oath that we swore to them.”