Numbers 25 - Easy To Read Version

^1-3 The people of Israel were camped near Acacia. At that time, the men began doing sexual sins [310] with Moabite women.

⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Get all the leaders of these people. Then kill them so that all the people can see. [311] Lay their bodies before the Lord. Then the Lord will not show his anger against all the people of Israel.”

⁵ So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must find the men in your family group that have led people to worship the false god, Baal of Peor. Then you must kill those men.”

⁶ At the time, Moses and all the elders (leaders) of Israel were gathered together at the entrance to the Meeting Tent. [312] An Israelite man brought a Midianite woman home to his brothers. [313] He did this where Moses and all the leaders could see. Moses and the leaders were very sad.

⁷ Phinehas was the son of Eleazar and the grandson of Aaron the priest. Phinehas saw this man bring the woman into camp. So Phinehas left the meeting and got his spear.

⁸ He followed the Israelite man into the tent. Then he used the spear to kill the Israelite man and the Midianite woman in her tent. [314] He pushed the spear through both of their bodies. At that time, there was a great sickness among the Israelite people. But when Phinehas killed these two people, the sickness stopped.

⁹ A total of 24,000 people died from that sickness.

¹⁰ The Lord said to Moses,

¹¹ “I have strong feelings for my people—I want them to belong only to me! Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saved the people of Israel from my anger. He did this by showing those feelings for my people. So I will not kill the people like I wanted to.

¹² Tell Phinehas that I am making a peace agreement with him.

¹³ This is the agreement: He and all of his family that live after him will always be priests. Why? Because he had strong feelings for his God. And he did the things that made the people of Israel pure. [315] ”

¹⁴ The Israelite man who was killed with the Midianite woman was named Zimri son of Salu. He was the leader of a family in Simeon’s family group.

¹⁵ And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi. [316] She was the daughter of Zur. Zur was the head of a family and leader of a Midianite family group.

¹⁶ The Lord said to Moses,

¹⁷ “The Midianite people are your enemies. You must kill them.

¹⁸ They have already made you their enemies. They tricked you at Peor. And they tricked you with the woman named Cozbi. [317] She was the daughter of a Midianite leader. But she was killed when the sickness came to the Israelite people. That sickness was caused because the people were tricked into worshiping the false god Baal of Peor.”