Numbers 25

1Israel settled at Shittim, and there the people began to commit sexual immorality with the women of Moab. 2These women invited the people to the sacrifices for their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3So Israel bound itself to the Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD burned against Israel. 4The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and impale them before the LORD in the light of day, so that the burning anger of the LORD will leave Israel.” 5So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you is to kill the men under his authority who have bound themselves to the Baal of Peor.” 6Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman to his relatives. He did it in full view of Moses and the whole congregation of the Israelites, as they wept at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he stood up from among the congregation and seized a spear. 8He went after the Israelite man into the inner tent and ran the spear through both of them, the Israelite man and the woman, through her belly. And the plague that was striking the Israelites came to a stop. 9The number who died in the plague was 24,000.

10Then the LORD spoke to Moses. He said, 11“Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the Israelites, because he burned with my zeal among them. So I did not wipe out the Israelites in my zeal. 12Therefore say: ‘I now give him my covenant of peace. 13It will be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of priesthood for all time, because he showed zeal for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.’” 14The Israelite man killed along with the Midianite woman was named Zimri son of Salu; he was a leader of an ancestral family of the Simeonites. 15The Midianite woman who was killed was called Cozbi daughter of Zur. Zur was head of the clans of an ancestral family in Midian.

16Then the LORD spoke to Moses. He said, 17“Be hostile to the Midianites and strike them down. 18For they are hostile to you with the tricks they played on you in the affair of Peor and in the affair of Cozbi, their kinswoman, the daughter of a leader of Midian, who was killed on the day of the plague that came because of Peor.”