Have you ever been in a situation where someone stopped regarding you with favor? And God told you to leave the presence of that person?

So you gather up your wives and concubines and livestock, and you leave.

But then the person you’re fleeing from follows you for 7 days to confront you. And God warns this person not to say anything to you, either good or bad. But they still do. They say, “Why did you runaway? You robbed me of the opportunity to throw you a going away party! You’re bad! I’m good! You’re a scoundrel and villain! I’m the victim! It is in my power to do you harm, but I’m a ‘good person’ so I will show you mercy. But I’m definitely better than you, and I am the arbiter of this relationship; and I will now commence to policing you and I will most certainly find you guilty of something and I shall subsequently punish you!”

And so this person puts you under surveillance, and scrutinizes everything you do.

And then you become angry with this person for running surveillance on your life and scrutinizing everything you do, and you berate them saying, “What is my offense!? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me!? You scrutinize me and you find nothing that will hold up in court. I have slaved away and served and worked myself ragged, and you need to back-off! If the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been on my side, surely now you would abuse and destroy me. God sees my affliction and the labor of my hands and He rebukes you.”

And then this person gives it right back to you, saying, “Any good thing you have is because of me! Me, me, me! Everything is mine, and it is only my mercy that makes your life work! But what recourse do I have? You have abused me, and I am the victim!”

SO WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THIS SITUATION? Clearly y’all are at a crossroads. It would seem that y’all have irreconcilable differences.

Here’s what you do. You gather up a bunch of stones and you make a heap, and then you share a meal with this person by the heap of stones. And the person you’re at odds with calls the heap of stones Jegar-sahadutha [יְגַ֖רשָׂהֲדוּתָ֑א], and you call the heap of stones Galeed [גַּלְעֵֽד] – because y’all can’t even agree on which language to use for the word “witness” [one of you insists on Aramaic, and the other insists on Hebrew] – but the basic idea is that y’all are both adamant about the fact that “YOU ARE RIGHT!” and you’re both asking God to keep an eye on the other person to make sure that they don’t cross this boundary line (where you’ve heaped up these stones). And the person you’re at odds with says, “The Lord watch between you and me, and if you ever do abusive bad stuff [like I know you are inclined to do], then God will see it and bear witness against you! …And this heap of stones is a witness, and I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap to me, to do harm! May God judge between us!”

That’s it.