1. When Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab.
2. These women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods.
3. When Israel joined themselves to Baal-peor, the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel.
4. The Lord said to Moses, “Arrest all the leaders of the people, and hang them up before the Lord in broad daylight, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”
5. So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you must execute those of his men who were joined to Baal-peor.”
6. Just then one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of the whole community of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
7. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand,
8. and went after the Israelite man into the tent and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. So the plague was stopped from the Israelites.
9. Those that died in the plague were 24,000.
10. The Lord spoke to Moses:
11. “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal.