Numbers 32:1–19

The Tribes Settling East of the Jordan

32Now the children of Reuben and the children of Gad had a very great multitude of livestock; and when they saw the land of ^aJazer and the land of ^bGilead, that indeed the region was a place for livestock, ²the children of Gad and the children of Reuben came and spoke to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the leaders of the congregation, saying, ³“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, ^cNimrah, ^dHeshbon, Elealeh, ^eShebam, Nebo, and ^fBeon, ⁴the country ^gwhich the Lord defeated before the congregation of Israel, is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.” ⁵Therefore they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants as a possession. Do not take us over the Jordan.”

⁶And Moses said to the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben: “Shall your brethren go to war while you sit here? ⁷Now why will you ^hdiscourage the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them? ⁸Thus your fathers did ⁱwhen I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea ^jto see the land. ⁹For ^kwhen they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them. ^10lSo the Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying, ¹¹‘Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, ^mfrom twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because ⁿthey have not wholly followed Me, ¹²except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, ^ofor they have wholly followed the Lord.’ ¹³So the Lord’s anger was aroused against Israel, and He made them ^pwander in the wilderness forty years, until ^qall the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone. ¹⁴And look! You have risen in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the ^rfierce anger of the Lord against Israel. ¹⁵For if you ^sturn away from following Him, He will once again leave them in the wilderness, and you will destroy all these people.”

¹⁶Then they came near to him and said: “We will build sheepfolds here for our livestock, and cities for our little ones, ¹⁷but ^twe ourselves will be armed, ready to go before the children of Israel until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones will dwell in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. ^18uWe will not return to our homes until every one of the children of Israel has ¹received his inheritance. ¹⁹For we will not inherit with them on the other side of the Jordan and beyond, ^vbecause our inheritance has fallen to us on this eastern side of the Jordan.”