Numbers, Chapter 25:
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Number Verses, Chapter 25 of the Bible's Book of Numbers.
Moab seduces Israel
- 1. Israel remained in Shittim, and the people began to prostitute themselves with Moabite women.
- 2. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed to their gods.
- 3. Israel clung to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against them.
- 4. The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders of the people and hang them before the Lord, before the sun, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.”
- 5. Then Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill the men entrusted to you who are attached to Baal of Peor.”
- 6. On that occasion, an Israelite brought a Midianite woman to his tent, in the sight of Moses and the entire community of Israel, while they wept at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
- 7. When Phinehas, son of the priest Eleazar, grandson of Aaron, saw this, he took up a spear,
- 8. He followed the Israelite into the room, and pierced both of them – the Israelite and the woman – through the abdomen. Then the plague that was on the Israelites stopped.
- 9. Those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.
- 10. The Lord said to Moses:
- 11. “Phinehas, son of Eleazar the priest, grandson of Aaron, turned my anger away from the Israelites. How he was zealous for my sake among them, and so prevented me from destroying them in my anger,
- 12. therefore declare that I give you my covenant of peace.
- 13. He and his descendants will have an everlasting covenant of priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
- 14. The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri, son of Salu, head of a tribe ancestral to Simeon.
- 15. And the name of the dead Midianite woman was Cozbi, daughter of Zur, chief of a clan of the ancient tribe of Midian.
- 16. The Lord said to Moses:
- 17. “Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them,
- 18. for they treated them as enemies, deceiving them in the episode of Peor, and in the episode of the sister of Kozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, who was killed on the day of the plague, because of Peor”.
