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The Israelites took Midianite women as wives and consequently started worshiping their gods. Some 24,000 Israelites died in that judgment. Moses is now told to pick up where the priest Phinehas left off and kill the Midianites.

Moses (to the Israelites): 3-5 Get yourselves ready for war. From among your men, select 1,000 from each of Israel’s tribes. Arm them, and send them out to fulfill God’s desire to make the Midianites pay for their treachery.

So it was that 12,000 Israelite men went off to war. Moses sent the zealous priest Phinehas (Priest Eleazar’s son) with each tribe’s contribution toward the army of 1,000 men, too, carrying the holy vessels and trumpets to sound the alarm. At the direction of God through Moses, the Israelites fought fiercely. By the time it was over, they had managed to kill every single Midianite male.

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