24 No! We did it because we were afraid that in the future your descendants would say to ours, ‘What do you have to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?
25 He made the Jordan a boundary between us and you people of Reuben and Gad. You have nothing to do with the Lord.’ Then your descendants might make our descendants stop worshiping the Lord.
26 So we built an altar, not to burn sacrifices or make offerings,
27 but instead, as a sign for our people and yours, and for the generations after us, that we do indeed worship the Lord before his sacred Tent with our offerings to be burned and with sacrifices and fellowship offerings. This was to keep your descendants from saying that ours have nothing to do with the Lord.
28 It was our idea that, if this should ever happen, our descendants could say, ‘Look! Our ancestors made an altar just like the Lord's altar. It was not for burning offerings or for sacrifice, but as a sign for our people and yours.’
29 We would certainly not rebel against the Lord or stop following him now by building an altar to burn offerings on or for grain offerings or sacrifices. We would not build any other altar than the altar of the Lord our God that stands in front of the Tent of his presence.”
30 Phinehas the priest and the ten leading men of the community who were with him, the heads of families of the western tribes, heard what the people of the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh had to say, and they were satisfied.