Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: , Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, , and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
But if the land you possess is defiled, cross over to the land the Lord possesses where the Lord’s tabernacle stands, and take possession of it among us. But don’t rebel against the Lord or against us by building for yourselves an altar other than the altar of the Lord our God.
The Lord has rejected his altar, repudiated his sanctuary; he has handed the walls of her palaces over to the enemy. They have raised a shout in the house of the Lord as on the day of an appointed festival.
For the land abandoned by them will make up for its Sabbaths by lying desolate without the people, while they make amends for their iniquity, because they rejected my ordinances and abhorred my statutes.
Yet in spite of this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject or abhor them so as to destroy them and break my covenant with them, since I am the Lord their God.
Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest said to the descendants of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh, ‘Today we know that the Lord is among us, because you have not committed this treachery against him. As a result, you have rescued the Israelites from the Lord’s power.’
In all my journeys with all the Israelites, have I ever spoken a word to one of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, asking: Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar? ”