CHAPTER 25
1 Soothly in that time Israel dwelled in Shittim; and the people did forni-cation with the daughters of Moab;
2 which daughters called them to their sacrifices, and they ate, and wor-shipped the gods of those daughters;
3 and Israel made sacrifice to Baalpeor. And the Lord was wroth,
4 and said to Moses, Take thou all the princes of the people, and hang them against the sun in gibbets, that my strong vengeance be turned away from Israel.
5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Each man slay his neighbours, that made sacrifice to Baalpeor.
6 And lo! one of the sons of Israel entered before his brethren to an whore of Midian, in the sight of Moses, and of all the company of the sons of Israel, which wept before the gates of the tabernacle.
7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, had seen this unshamefast doing, he rose from the midst of the multitude; and when he had taken a sword,
8 he entered after the man of Israel into the whorehouse, and sticked through both together, that is, the man and the woman, in the places of engendering. And the vengeance ceased from the sons of Israel,
9 and four and twenty thousand of men were slain.
10 And the Lord said to Moses,
11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, priest, hath turned away my wrath from the sons of Israel; for he was moved against them by my fervent love, that, I myself not do away the sons of Israel in my great ferventness of vengeance.
12 Therefore speak thou to him, Lo! I give to him the peace of my covenant,
13 and it shall be an everlasting covenant of priesthood, as well to himself as to his seed; for he loved fervently for his God, and he hath cleansed the great trespass of the sons of Israel.
14 Forsooth the name of the man of Israel, that was slain with the woman of Midian, was Zimri, the son of Salu, duke, of the kindred and lineage of Simeon.
15 Soothly the woman of Midian that was slain together with the whoreling, was called Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, the noblest prince of Midianites.
16 And the Lord spake to Moses, and said,
17 Midianites feel you enemies, and smite ye them;
18 for also they have done enemy-like against you, and deceived you by treasons, by the idol of Peor, and by their sister Cozbi, daughter of the duke of Midian, which daughter was slain in the day of vengeance, for the sacrilege of Peor.