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 must not touch them.

² Keep^[a] the king’s command, and because of your sacred oath^(A)

² is vanity,^[a] since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil,^[b] to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners; those who swear are like those who shun an oath.^(A)

²⁰ This is what we will do to them: we will let them live, so that wrath may not come upon us, because of the oath that we swore to them.”