Moab Seduces Israel

25 While Israel dwelt in Shittim, the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. ² They called the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³ Israel joined himself to the Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was inflamed against Israel.

⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them before the Lord in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord turn from Israel.”

⁵ Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Kill each of the men who have aligned themselves with the Baal of Peor.”

⁶ Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the assembly of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tent of meeting. ⁷ When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the assembly and took a spear in his hand, ⁸ and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stopped from the children of Israel. ⁹ Those that died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹¹ “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned My wrath away from the children of Israel, because he was zealous for My sake among them, so I did not exterminate the children of Israel in My zeal. ¹² Therefore say, ‘I hereby grant him My covenant of peace. ¹³ And it will be for him and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel.’ ”

¹⁴ Now the name of the slain Israelite who was slain with the Midianite woman was Zimri the son of Salu, a leader of a chief house among the Simeonites. ¹⁵ The name of the Midianite woman that was slain was Kozbi the daughter of Zur. He was chief over a people and of a father’s house in Midian.

¹⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁷ “Be hostile to the Midianites, and defeat them, ¹⁸ because they have been hostile to you with their wiles, with which they have deceived you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Kozbi the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague because of Peor.”