Numbers 32:6-32

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁶ But Moses said to the Gadites and to the Reubenites, “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here? ⁷ Why will you discourage the hearts of the Israelites from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?^{(A) 8} Your fathers did this, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land.^{(B) 9} When they went up to the Wadi Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the hearts of the Israelites from going into the land that the Lord had given them. ¹⁰ The Lord’s anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying,^{(C) 11} ‘Surely none of the people who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and up, shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not unreservedly followed me^(D)— ¹² none except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they have unreservedly followed the Lord.’^{(E) 13} And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord had disappeared.^{(F) 14} And now you, a brood of sinners, have risen in place of your fathers, to increase the Lord’s fierce anger against Israel! ¹⁵ If you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all this people.”^(G)

¹⁶ Then they came up to him and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our flocks and towns for our little ones, ¹⁷ but we will take up arms as a vanguard^[a] before the Israelites, until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our little ones will stay in the fortified towns because of the inhabitants of the land.^{(H) 18} We will not return to our homes until all the Israelites have obtained their inheritance.^{(I) 19} We will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, because our inheritance has come to us on this side of the Jordan to the east.”^(J)

²⁰ So Moses said to them, “If you do this—if you take up arms to go before the Lord for the war^{(K) 21} and all those of you who bear arms cross the Jordan before the Lord, until he has driven out his enemies from before him ²² and the land is subdued before the Lord—then after that you may return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel, and this land shall be your possession before the Lord.^{(L) 23} But if you do not do this, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out. ²⁴ Build towns for your little ones and folds for your flocks, but do what you have promised.”^(M)

²⁵ Then the Gadites and the Reubenites said to Moses, “Your servants will do as my lord commands. ²⁶ Our little ones, our wives, our flocks, and all our livestock shall remain there in the towns of Gilead,^{(N) 27} but your servants will cross over, everyone armed for war, to do battle for the Lord, just as my lord orders.”^(O)

²⁸ So Moses gave command concerning them to Eleazar the priest, to Joshua son of Nun, and to the heads of the ancestral houses of the Israelite tribes.^{(P) 29} And Moses said to them, “If the Gadites and the Reubenites, everyone armed for battle before the Lord, will cross over the Jordan with you and the land shall be subdued before you, then you shall give them the land of Gilead for a possession,^{(Q) 30} but if they will not cross over with you armed, they shall have possessions among you in the land of Canaan.” ³¹ The Gadites and the Reubenites answered, saying, “As the Lord has spoken to your servants, so we will do. ³² We will cross over armed before the Lord into the land of Canaan, but the possession of our inheritance shall remain with us on this side of^[b] the Jordan.”