¹Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle; and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for cattle. ²So the sons of Gad and the sons of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the congregation, ³“Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon, ⁴the land which the Lord smote before the congregation of Israel, is a land for cattle; and your servants have cattle.” ⁵And they said, “If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession; do not take us across the Jordan.”

⁶But Moses said to the sons of Gad and to the sons of Reuben, “Shall your brethren go to the war while you sit here? ⁷Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord has given them? ⁸Thus did your fathers, when I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to see the land. ⁹For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol, and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land which the Lord had given them. ¹⁰And the Lord’s anger was kindled on that day, and he swore, saying, ¹¹‘Surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not wholly followed me; ¹²none except Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord.’ ¹³And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was consumed. ¹⁴And behold, you have risen in your fathers’ stead, a brood of sinful men, to increase still more the fierce anger of the Lord against Israel! ¹⁵For if you turn away from following him, he will again abandon them in the wilderness; and you will destroy all this people.”

¹⁶Then they came near to him, and said, “We will build sheepfolds here for our flocks, and cities for our little ones, ¹⁷but we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel, until we have brought them to their place; and our little ones shall live in the fortified cities because of the inhabitants of the land. ¹⁸We will not return to our homes until the people of Israel have inherited each his inheritance. ¹⁹For 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.”

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