Numbers 32:1-20 ▼

1 And the children of Ruben and the children of Gad had a multitude of cattle, very great; and they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Galaad; and the place was a place for cattle:

2 and the children of Ruben and the children of Gad came, and spoke to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the princes of the congregation, saying,

3 Ataroth, and Daebon, and Jazer, and Namra, and Esebon, and Eleale, and Sebama, and Nabau, and Baean,

4 the land which the Lord has delivered up before the children of Israel, is pasture land, and thy servants have cattle.

5 And they said, If we have found grace in thy sight, let this land be given to thy servants for a possession, and do not cause us to pass over Jordan.

6 And Moses said to the sons of Gad and the sons of Ruben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?

7 And why do ye pervert the minds of the children of Israel, that they should not cross over into the land, which the Lord gives them?

8 Did not your fathers thus, when I sent them from Cades Barne to spy out the land?

9 And they went up to the valley of the cluster, and spied the land, and turned aside the heart of the children of Israel, that they should not go into the land, which the Lord gave them.

10 And the Lord was very angry in that day, and sware, saying,

11 Surely these men who came up out of Egypt from twenty years old and upward, who know good and evil, shall not see the land which I sware to give to Abraam and Isaac and Jacob, for they have not closely followed after me:

12 save Caleb the son of Jephonne, who was set apart, and Joshua the son of Naue, for they closely followed after the Lord.

13 And the Lord was very angry with Israel; and for forty years he caused them to wander in the wilderness, until all the generation which did evil in the sight of the Lord was extinct.

14 Behold, ye are risen up in the room of your fathers, a combination of sinful men, to increase yet farther the fierce wrath of the Lord against Israel.

15 For ye will turn away from him to desert him yet once more in the wilderness, and ye will sin against this whole congregation.

16 And they came to him, and said, We will build here folds for our cattle, and cities for our possessions;

17 and we will arm ourselves and go as an advanced guard before the children of Israel, until we shall have brought them into their place; and our possessions shall remain in walled cities because of the inhabitants of the land.

18 We will not return to our houses till the children of Israel shall have been distributed, each to his own inheritance.

19 And we will not any longer inherit with them from the other side of Jordan and onwards, because we have our full inheritance on the side beyond Jordan eastward.

20 And Moses said to them, If ye will do according to these words, if ye will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle,