15. “Have you let every female live? ” he asked them.
16. “Yet they are the ones who, at Balaam’s advice, incited the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the Lord in the Peor incident, so that the plague came against the Lord’s community.
17. So now, kill all the male children and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man,
18. but keep alive for yourselves all the young females who have not had sexual relations.
19. “You are to remain outside the camp for seven days. All of you and your prisoners who have killed a person or touched the dead are to purify yourselves on the third day and the seventh day.
20. Also purify everything: garments, leather goods, things made of goat hair, and every article of wood.”
21. Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone to battle, “This is the legal statute the Lord commanded Moses:
22. Only the gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead —
23. everything that can withstand fire — you are to pass through fire, and it will be clean. It must still be purified with the purification water. Anything that cannot withstand fire, pass through the water.
24. On the seventh day wash your clothes, and you will be clean. After that you may enter the camp.”
25. The Lord told Moses,
26. “You, Eleazar the priest, and the family leaders of the community are to take a count of what was captured, man and beast.
27. Then divide the captives between the troops who went out to war and the entire community.
28. Set aside a tribute for the Lord from what belongs to the fighting men who went out to war: one out of every 500 humans, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats.
29. Take the tribute from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as a contribution to the Lord.
30. From the Israelites’ half, take one out of every 50 from the people, cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats, all the livestock, and give them to the Levites who perform the duties of the Lord’s tabernacle.”
31. So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.
32. The captives remaining from the plunder the army had taken totaled:675,000 sheep and goats,