They made the Lord angry by what they did, so many people became sick with a terrible disease.
The people became unholy by their sins; they were unfaithful to God in what they did.
Lord our God, you answered them. You showed them that you are a forgiving God, but you punished them for their wrongs.
One thing I have learned: God made people good, but they have found all kinds of ways to be bad.”
So the Israelites began to worship Baal of Peor, and the Lord was very angry with them.
He followed the Israelite into his tent and drove his spear through both the Israelite man and the Midianite woman. Then the terrible sickness among the Israelites stopped.
This sickness had killed twenty-four thousand people.
We must not take part in sexual sins, as some of them did. In one day twenty-three thousand of them died because of their sins.