Dual Panel1WHEN the Israelites were in Shittim, the men began to have intercourse with Moabite women,
2who invited them to the sacrifices offered to their gods. The Israelites ate the sacrificial food and prostrated themselves before the gods of Moab;
3they joined in the worship of the Baal of Peor. This aroused the anger of the LORD,
4who said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and hurl them down to their death before the LORD in the full light of day, that the fury of my anger may turn away from Israel.”
5Moses gave this order to the judges of Israel: “Each of you put to death those of his tribe who have joined in the worship of the Baal of Peor.”
6One of the Israelites brought a Midianite woman into his family in open defiance of Moses and all the community of Israel, while they were weeping by the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.
7When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw him, he got up from the assembly and took a spear,
8and went into the nuptial tent after the Israelite, where he transfixed the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, pinning them together. Then the plague which had attacked the Israelites was brought to a stop;
9but twenty-four thousand had already died.
10The LORD said to Moses,
11“Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the Israelites; he displayed among them the same jealous anger that moved me, and therefore I did not exterminate the Israelites in my jealous anger.
12Make known that I hereby grant him my covenant pledge of prosperity:
13he and his descendants after him shall enjoy the priesthood under a covenant for all time, because he showed his zeal for his God and made expiation for the Israelites.”
14The name of the Israelite struck down with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, a chief in a Simeonite family,
15and the Midianite woman's name was Cozbi daughter of Zur, who was the tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian.
16The LORD said to Moses,
17“Make the Midianites suffer as they made you suffer with their wiles, and strike them down; their wiles were your undoing at Peor and in the affair of Cozbi their sister, the daughter of a Midianite chief, who was struck down at the time of the plague that resulted from Peor.”
18(25:17)