9. The Israelites took the Midianite women and their children captive, and they plundered all their cattle, flocks, and property.
10. Then they burned all the cities where the Midianites lived, as well as all their encampments,
11. and took away all the spoils of war and the captives, both man and beast.
12. They brought the prisoners, animals, and spoils of war to Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the Israelite community at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho.
13. Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.
14. But Moses became furious with the officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, who were returning from the military campaign.
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,