been too rash in
assaulting you by our weapons of war, if it prove that you made the
altar for justifiable reasons, and may then justly punish you if the
accusation prove true; for we can hardly hardly suppose that you, have
been acquainted with the will of God and have been hearers of those laws
which he himself hath given us, now you are separated from us, and gone
to that patrimony of yours, which you, through the grace of God, and
that providence which he exercises over you, have obtained by lot, can
forget him, and can leave that ark and that altar which is peculiar to
us, and can introduce strange gods, and imitate the wicked practices of
the Canaanites. Now this will appear to have been a small crime if
you repent now, and proceed no further in your madness, but pay a due
reverence to, and keep in mind the laws of your country; but if you
persist in your sins, we will not grudge our pains to preserve our laws;
but we will pass over Jordan and defend them, and defend God also, and
shall esteem of you as of men no way differing from the Canaanites, but
shall destroy you in the like manner as we destroyed them; for do not
you imagine that, because you are got over the river, you are got out of
the reach of God's power; you are every where in places that belong to
him, and impossible it is to overrun his power, and the punishment he
will bring on men thereby: but if you think that your settlement here
will be any obstruction to your conversion to what is good, nothing need
hinder us from dividing the land anew, and leaving this old land to be
for the feeding of sheep; but you will do well to return to your duty,
and to leave off these new crimes; and we beseech you, by your children
and wives, not to force us to punish you. Take therefore such measures
in this assembly, as supposing that your own safety, and the safety of
those that are dearest to you, is therein concerned, and believe that
it is better for you to be conquered by words, than to continue in your
purpose, and to experience deeds and war therefore."

27. When Phineas had discoursed thus, the governors of the assembly, and
the whole multitude, began to make an apology for themselves, concerning
what they were accused of; and they said, That they neither would depart
from the relation they bare to them, nor had they built the altar by way
of innovation; that they owned one and the same common God with all the
Hebrews, and that brazen altar which was before