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.

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Footnotes

fin broad daylight; or publicly.