Numbers
Chapter 25
1 Israel stayed in Shittim, and the people started to have sex with the women of Moab.
2 They invited the people to the offerings for their gods, and the people ate and worshiped their gods.
3 Israel worshiped Baal of Peor, and God became angry with Israel.
4 God told Moses, “Take the leaders of the people and display them in front of God against the sun, so that God’s intense anger can be calmed down from Israel.”
5 Moses told the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill the men who followed Baal of Peor.”
6 Look, an Israelite man brought a Midianite woman to his brothers right in front of Moses and all the Israelites while they were crying at the entrance of the meeting tent.
7 When Phinehas, who was Eleazar’s son and Aaron the priest’s grandson, saw this, he stood up from among the people and grabbed a spear.
8 He followed the Israelite man into the tent and stabbed both of them, the man and the woman, in her belly. This stopped the plague among the Israelites.
9 Twenty-four thousand people died in the plague.
10 God spoke to Moses, saying,
11 Phinehas, Eleazar’s son and Aaron the priest’s grandson, stopped my anger against the Israelites by being passionately loyal to me among them, so I didn’t destroy the Israelites in my jealousy.
12 So say, ‘Look, I give him my promise of peace:’
13 He will have it, and his descendants too—the promise of a lasting priesthood; because he was eager for his God, and covered the sins of the Israelites.
14 The Israelite man who was killed with the Midianite woman was named Zimri, son of Salu, a leader from a top family among the Simeonites.
15 The Midianite woman who was killed was named Cozbi, Zur’s daughter. Zur was a leader of a tribe and a ruling family in Midian.
16 God spoke to Moses, saying,
17 Trouble the Midianites and strike them down.
18 They trouble you with their tricks, which they used to deceive you about Peor, and about Cozbi, the Midianite prince’s daughter and their sister, who was killed when the plague came because of Peor.