Numbers 25

The People of Israel at Peor

25When the Israelites were camped in the Valley of Acacia, the men began to have sexual intercourse with the Moabite women who were there. ²These women invited them to sacrificial feasts, where the god of Moab was worshipped. The Israelites ate the food and worshipped the god ³Baal of Peor. So the Lord was angry with them ⁴and said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of Israel and, in obedience to me, execute them in broad daylight,^f and then I will no longer be angry with the people.” ⁵Moses said to the officials, “Each of you is to kill every man in your tribe who has become a worshipper of Baal of Peor.”

⁶One of the Israelites took a Midianite woman into his tent in the sight of Moses and the whole community, while they were mourning at the entrance of the Tent of the Lord’s presence. ⁷When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest, saw this, he got up and left the assembly. He took a spear, ⁸followed the man and the woman into the tent, and drove the spear through both of them. In this way the epidemic that was destroying Israel was stopped, ⁹but it had already killed 24,000 people.

¹⁰The Lord said to Moses, ¹¹“Because of what Phinehas has done, I am no longer angry with the people of Israel. He refused to tolerate the worship of any god but me, and that is why I did not destroy them in my anger. ¹²So tell him that I am making a covenant with him that is valid for all time to come. ¹³He and his descendants are permanently established as priests, because he did not tolerate any rivals to me and brought about forgiveness for the people’s sin.”

¹⁴The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the head of a family in the tribe of Simeon. ¹⁵The woman’s name was Cozbi. Zur, her father, was chief of a group of Midianite clans.

¹⁶The Lord commanded Moses, ¹⁷“Attack the Midianites and destroy them, ¹⁸because of the evil they did to you when they deceived you at Peor, and because of Cozbi, who was killed at the time of the epidemic at Peor.”