Catholic Public Domain Version
"and we said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, and not to offer victims, "
— Joshua 22:26, Catholic Public Domain Version
“Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice:”
“Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt-offering, nor for sacrifice: ”
“"Therefore we said, 'Let's now prepare to build ourselves an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice;”
“So we decided to build this altar, not for burnt offerings and sacrifices,”
“And said: Let us build us an altar, not for holocausts, nor to offer victims,”
“So we said, Let us now make an altar for ourselves, not for burned offerings or for the offerings of beasts:”
“Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build us an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice:”
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.’
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.’
May this wickedness be far from us, such that we would withdraw from the Lord, and would forsake his paths, by constructing an altar to offer holocausts, and sacrifices, and victims, contrary to the altar of the Lord our God, which was built before his tabernacle.”