Catholic Public Domain Version
"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? "
— Joshua 22:24, Catholic Public Domain Version
“And if we have not rather done it for fear of this thing, saying, In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with the Lord God of Israel?”
“and if we have not rather out of carefulness done this, and of purpose, saying, In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with Jehovah, the God of Israel? ”
“"If we have not out of concern done this, and for a reason, saying, 'In time to come your children might speak to our children, saying, "What have you to do with Yahweh, the God of Israel?”
“We swear we have done this because we were worried that in the future your descendants would say to our descendants,‘What relationship do you have with the LORD God of Israel?”
“And not rather with this thought and design, that we should say: To morrow your children will say to our children: What have you to do with the Lord the God of Israel?”
“And if we have not, in fact, done this designedly and with purpose, having in our minds the fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?”
“And if we have not rather done it for fear of this thing, saying, In time to come your children might speak unto our children, saying, What have ye to do with the Lord God of Israel?”
And the sons of Reuben, and of Gad, and of the one half tribe of Manasseh responded to the leaders of the delegation from Israel:
“The Lord, the almighty God, the Lord, the almighty God, he knows, and also Israel will understand: If we have constructed this altar with intent of transgression, let him not preserve us, but instead punish us immediately.
And if we have acted with a mind so that we might present upon it holocausts, and sacrifice, and victims of peace offerings, let him inquire and judge.
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?
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,
and we said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, and not to offer victims,
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.’