²⁷ Joshua said to all the people, “See, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us; therefore it shall be a witness against you if you deal falsely with your God.”^(A)

⁴⁰ He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”^(A)

³⁴ The Reubenites and the Gadites called the altar Witness,^[a] “for,” they said, “it is a witness between us that the Lord is God.”^(A)

³³ but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

²⁷ but to be a witness between us and you and between the generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and offerings of well-being, so that your children may never say to our children in time to come, “You have no portion in the Lord.” ’^{(A) 28} And we thought, ‘If this should be said to us or to our descendants in time to come, we could say, “Look at this copy of the altar of the Lord that our ancestors made, not for burnt offerings nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you.”

²⁶ “Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God; let it remain there as a witness against you.^(A)

The Wickedness of Judah