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27 But that it may be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, and between ourselves and our generations after us, that we might do the service of the LORD before him with our burnt offerings and with our sacrifices and with our peace offerings, in the place where the LORD chooses to dwell; so that your children may not say to our children in time to come, You have no part in the LORD. 28 Therefore we said that it shall be, if they should ever speak to us or to our generations in time to come, then we may say to them, Behold the pattern of the altar of the LORD which our fathers made not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifices; but to be a witness between us and you. 29 God forbid that we should reject the worship of the LORD, and turn away from revering him, and build for ourselves an altar for burnt offerings, for gift offerings, or for sacrifices, besides the altar of the LORD God of Israel that is before his tabernacle. 30 And when Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest and the princes of the congregation and the heads of the armies of Israel who were with him heard the words that the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh spoke, it pleased them. 31 And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the Reubenites and to the Gadites and to the half tribe of Manasseh. This day we know that the LORD is among us, because you have not committed this trespass against the LORD; now you have delivered the children of Israel, that the hand of the LORD might not be against them with wrath. 32 Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the princes who were with him, returned from the Reubenites and from the Gadites and the Manashites, out of the land of Gilead, to the land of Canaan, to the children of Israel, and brought them an answer. 33 And the answer pleased the children of Israel; and the children of Israel blessed God, and decided not to go up against them to battle to destroy the land wherein the Reubenites and the Gadites and the Manashites dwelt. 34 And the Reubenites and the Gadites and the Manashites called the altar which they had made, The Altar of Testimony, for it is a witness between us that the LORD is the only God. Joshua 22:27-34, Lamsa Bible. Public domain.
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