Numbers

25 And the Israelites stayed at the Acacias, and the people began to follow the Moabite girls for immoral purposes. 2 And the girls invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate of them and did reverence to the girls’ gods, 3 and Israel fraternized with the Baal of Peghor; and Jehovah was angry with Israel. 4 And Jehovah said to Moses “Take all the headmen of the people and shelve them up to Jehovah in front of the sun, that Jehovah’s anger may turn back from Israel.” 5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel “Kill each of you his own men that have fraternized with the Baal of Peghor.”

6* And there an Israelite man came in and brought his Midianite girl up to his brothers before the eyes of Moses and all the congregation of the sons of Israel as they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting. 7 And Pinehas the son of Priest Aaron’s son Eleazar saw it, and stood up from among the congregation and took a lance in his hand 8 and went in after the Israelite man into the pavilion and ran them both through, the Israelite man and the woman through her organ of sex; and the deaths among the sons of Israel were shut off. 9 And of those who died in the plague there were twenty-four thousand.

10 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying 11 “Pinehas the son of Priest Aaron’s son Eleazar has turned back my ire from the sons of Israel by his being jealous on my behalf among them, so that I did not exterminate them in my jealousy. 12 So say ‘I hereby give him my covenant of goodwill, 13 and he and his descendants after him shall have a covenant of perpetual priesthood, for his having been jealous for his God and purged the sons of Israel.’”

14 And the name of the killed Israelite man, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri the son of Salu, a family prince of the Simeonites. 15 And the name of the killed Midianite woman was Cozbi the daughter of Sur; he was head of a family sept in Midian.

16 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, 17 saying “Assail the Midianites and strike them down, 18* because they are assailing you with their plots that they are laying against you in the affair of Peghor and in the affair of their sister Cozbi the daughter of the prince of Midian, who was killed in the affair of Peghor.”