24 Instead, we have acted with this greater thought and design, that we would say: Tomorrow your sons will say to our sons: 'What is there between you and the Lord, the God of Israel?
25 The Lord has stationed the river Jordan as the border between us and you, O sons of Reuben, O sons of Gad. And therefore, you have no part in the Lord.' And by this occasion, your sons would turn away our sons from the fear of the Lord. And so we sought something better,
26 and we said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, and not to offer victims,
27 but as a testimony between us and you, and between our descendants and your progeny, so that we may serve the Lord, and so that it may be our right to offer holocausts, and victims, and peace offerings, and so that tomorrow your sons may not say to our sons: 'You have no part in the Lord.'
28 And if they decide to say this, they shall respond to them: 'Behold, the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for holocausts, and not for sacrifice, but instead as a testimony between us and you.'
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