Numbers 25:6-15

Holman Christian Standard Bible

Phinehas Intervenes

⁶ An Israelite man came bringing a Midianite woman to his relatives in the sight of Moses and the whole Israelite community while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. ⁷ When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand, ⁸ followed the Israelite man into the tent,^[a] and drove it through both the Israelite man and the woman—through her belly. Then the plague on the Israelites was stopped, ⁹ but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.^(A)

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Moses, ¹¹ “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the Israelites because he was zealous among them with My zeal,^[b](B) so that I did not destroy the Israelites in My zeal. ¹² Therefore declare: I grant him My covenant of peace.^{(C) 13} It will be a covenant of perpetual priesthood for him and his future descendants,^(D) because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”

¹⁴ The name of the slain Israelite man, who was struck dead with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite ancestral house. ¹⁵ The name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur, a tribal head of an ancestral house in Midian.