29. If these men die the common death of all men or if [only] what happens to everyone happens to them, then the Lord has not sent me.
30. But if the Lord causes a new thing [to happen], and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up, with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol (the place of the dead), then you shall understand that these men have provoked (spurned, despised) the Lord!
31. As soon as he stopped speaking, the ground under the offenders split apart
32. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households and [Korah and] all [his] men and all their possessions. [Num. 26:10, 11.]
33. They and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol (the place of the dead); and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the assembly.
34. And all Israel who were round about them fled at their cry, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
35. And fire came forth from the Lord and devoured the 250 men who offered the incense.
36. And the Lord said to Moses,
37. Speak to Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, that he take up the censers out of the burning and scatter the fire at a distance. For the censers are hallowed–
38. The censers of these men who have sinned against themselves and at the cost of their own lives. Let the censers be made into hammered plates for a covering of the altar [of burnt offering], for they were used in offering before the Lord and therefore they are sacred. They shall be a sign [of warning] to the Israelites.
39. Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers with which the Levites who were burned had offered incense, and they were hammered into broad sheets for a covering of the [brazen] altar [of burnt offering],
40. To be a memorial [a warning forever] to the Israelites, so that no outsider, that is, no one not of the descendants of Aaron, should come near to offer incense before the Lord, lest he become as Korah and as his company, as the Lord said to Eleazar through Moses.