Now the sons of Reuben and the sons of Gad had a very great multitude of cattle; and they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for cattle.
And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Reuben; for she said, “Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; surely now my husband will love me.”
They said to Pharaoh, “We have come to sojourn in the land; for there is no pasture for your servants' flocks, for the famine is severe in the land of Canaan; and now, we pray you, let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen.”
These, registered by name, came in the days of Hezekiah, king of Judah, and destroyed their tents and the Me-unim who were found there, and exterminated them to this day, and settled in their place, because there was pasture there for their flocks.
For thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah: “ ‘You are as Gilead to me, as the summit of Lebanon, yet surely I will make you a desert, an uninhabited city.
More than for Jazer I weep for you, O vine of Sibmah! Your branches passed over the sea, reached as far as Jazer; upon your summer fruits and your vintage the destroyer has fallen.
I will restore Israel to his pasture, and he shall feed on Carmel and in Bashan, and his desire shall be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and in Gilead.
Shepherd thy people with thy staff, the flock of thy inheritance, who dwell alone in a forest in the midst of a garden land; let them feed in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old.
He chose the best of the land for himself, for there a commander's portion was reserved; and he came to the heads of the people, with Israel he executed the commands and just decrees of the Lord.”
Then the people of Israel sent to the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest,
So the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned home, parting from the people of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, their own land of which they had possessed themselves by command of the Lord through Moses.