A reading from the book of numbers.

Now the people of Rubin and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock,

and they saw the land of Jazeer and the land of Gilead, and behold the place was a place for livestock.

So the people of Gad and the people of Rubin came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest,

and to the chiefs of the congregation,

Ataroth, Dibbon, Jaiser, Nimra, Heshbon, Eliella, Sebum, Nibo, and Boen,

the land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel,

is a land for livestock, and your servants have livestock.

And they said,

If we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for a possession.

Do not take us across the Jordan.

But Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Rubin, shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you

discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them?

Your fathers did this when I sent them from Khadish-Barnia to into the land that the Lord has given them. Your fathers did this when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to see the land.

For when they went up to the valley of Eshkol and saw the land,

they discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them.

And the Lord's anger was kindled on that day, and he swore,

saying, surely none of the men who came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward,

shall see the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, because they have not

wholly followed me. None except Caleb, the son of Jifuna, the Kenazite,

and Joshua the son of none, for they have wholly followed the Lord. And the Lord's anger was

kindled against Israel, and he made them wonder in the wilderness forty years until all the

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