³⁷ these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report^(A) about the land were struck down and died of a plague^(B) before the Lord.

⁸ We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.^(A)

¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice^(A) and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident,^(B) so that a plague^(C) struck the Lord’s people.