And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;

And the people answered and said, Far be it from us that we should forsake Jehovah, to serve other gods;

And the people answered, and said: God forbid we should leave the Lord, and serve strange gods.

And the people answer and say, 'Far be it from us to forsake Jehovah, to serve other gods;

Then the people in answer said, Never will we give up the Lord to be the servants of other gods;

And the people responded, and they said: "Far be it from us that we would forsake the Lord, and serve foreign gods.

Cui respondit populus, dicens, Absit a nobis ut derelinquamus Jehovam, serviendo diis alienis.

And the people answered and said, etc Here we see he had no reason to repent of the option given, when the people, not swearing in the words of another, nor obsequiously submitting to extraneous dictation, declare that it would be an impious thing to revolt from God. And thus it tends, in no small degree, to confirm the covenant, when the people voluntarily lay the law upon themselves. The substance of the answer is, that since the Lord has, by a wonderful redemption, purchased them for himself as a peculiar people, has constantly lent them his aid, and shown that he is among them as their God, it would be detestable ingratitude to reject him and revolt to other gods.

God forbid that we should forsake the Lord - That they were now sincere cannot be reasonably doubted, for they served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and the elders that outlived him, Joshua 24:31; but afterwards they turned aside, and did serve other gods. "It is ordinary," says Mr. Trapp, "for the many-headed multitude to turn with the stream - to be of the same religion with their superiors: thus at Rome, in Diocletian's time, they were pagans; in Constantine's Christians; in Constantius's, Arians; in Julian's apostates, and in Jovinian's, Christians again! And all this within less than the age of a man. It is, therefore, a good thing that the heart be established with grace."

And the people answered and said,.... To Joshua, upon his proposal to them, the option he gave them to serve the Lord or idols, and which was only done to try them:
God forbid that we should forsake the Lord, to serve other gods; they speak with the utmost abhorrence of idolatry, as a thing far from their hearts and thoughts, as the most abominable and execrable that could be thought or spoken of; to forsake the word, and worship, and ordinances of God, and serve the idols of the Gentiles, strange gods, whether more ancient or more recent, such as their fathers worshipped in former times, or the inhabitants of the land they now dwelt in, for which they were spewed out of it.