¹⁹ but all the leaders answered, “We have given them our oath by the Lord, the God of Israel, and we cannot touch them now.

Obey the King

² Obey the king’s command, I say, because you took an oath before God.

² All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,^[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

²⁰ This is what we will do to them: We will let them live, so that God’s wrath will not fall on us for breaking the oath^(A) we swore to them.”