² Avenge the Israelites on the Midianites, and then you will be gathered to your people. ³ So Moses told the people, “Arm some men among you for the campaign, to attack Midian and to execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian. ⁴ From each of the tribes of Israel you will send a thousand men to the campaign.” ⁵ From the contingents of Israel, therefore, a thousand men of each tribe were levied, so that there were twelve thousand men armed for war. ⁶ Moses sent them out on the campaign, a thousand from each tribe, with Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the priest for the campaign, who had with him the sacred vessels and the trumpets for sounding the alarm. ⁷ They waged war against the Midianites, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and killed every male. ⁸ Besides those slain in battle, they killed the kings of Midian: Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba, the five kings of Midian;^[a] and they also killed Balaam, son of Beor, with the sword. ⁹ But the Israelites took captive the women of the Midianites with their children, and all their herds and flocks and wealth as loot, ¹⁰ while they set on fire all the towns where they had settled and all their encampments. ¹¹ Then they took all the plunder, with the people and animals they had captured, and brought the captives, together with the spoils and plunder, ¹² to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the Israelite community at their camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho.