Numbers 31:7-18 ▼

7 And they war against Midian, as YHWH has commanded Moses, and slay every male;

8 and they have slain the kings of Midian besides their pierced ones: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba—five kings of Midian; and they have slain Balaam son of Beor with the sword.

9 And the sons of Israel take the women of Midian and their infants captive; and they have plundered all their livestock, and all their substance, and all their wealth;

10 and they have burned all their cities, with their habitations, and all their towers, with fire.

11 And they take all the spoil and all the prey, among man and among beast;

12 and they bring in the captives, and the prey, and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp, to the plains of Moab, which [are] by the Jordan, [near] Jericho.

13 And Moses, and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congregation, go out to meet them, to the outside of the camp,

14 and Moses is angry against the inspectors of the force, chiefs of the thousands, and chiefs of the hundreds, who are coming in from the warfare of battle.

15 And Moses says to them, “Have you kept every female alive?

16 Behold, they have been to the sons of Israel, through the word of Balaam, to cause a trespass against YHWH in the matter of Peor, and the plague is in the congregation of YHWH.

17 And now, slay every male among the infants, indeed, slay every woman knowing a man by the lying of a male;

18 and all the infants among the women who have not known the lying of a male you have kept alive for yourselves.