Numbers 31:10-35

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

¹⁰ All their towns where they had settled, and all their encampments, they burned, ¹¹ but they took all the spoil and all the plunder, both people and animals.^{(A) 12} Then they brought the captives and the plunder and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the Israelites, at the camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho.

Return from the War

¹³ Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the congregation went to meet them outside the camp. ¹⁴ Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. ¹⁵ Moses said to them, “Have you allowed all the women to live? ¹⁶ These women here, on Balaam’s advice, made the Israelites act treacherously against the Lord in the affair of Peor, so that the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.^{(B) 17} Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him.^{(C) 18} But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves. ¹⁹ Camp outside the camp seven days, whoever of you has killed any person or touched a corpse; purify yourselves, you and your captives, on the third and on the seventh day. ²⁰ You shall purify every garment, every article of skin, everything made of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”

²¹ Eleazar the priest said to the troops who had gone to battle, “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded Moses: ²² gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead— ²³ everything that can withstand fire, you shall pass through fire, and it shall be clean. Nevertheless, it shall also be purified with the water for purification, and whatever cannot withstand fire, you shall pass through the water.^{(D) 24} You must wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you shall be clean; afterward you may come into the camp.”^(E)

Disposition of Captives and Plunder

²⁵ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁶ “You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the ancestral houses of the congregation make an inventory of the plunder captured, both human and animal. ²⁷ Divide the plunder into two parts, between the warriors who went out to battle and all the congregation. ²⁸ From the share of the warriors who went out to battle, set aside as tribute for the Lord one item out of every five hundred, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, or sheep.^{(F) 29} Take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord. ³⁰ But from the Israelites’ half you shall take one out of every fifty, whether persons, oxen, donkeys, or sheep—all the animals—and give them to the Levites, who perform the duties of the tabernacle of the Lord.”^(G)

³¹ Then Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

³² The plunder remaining from the spoils that the troops had taken totaled six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep,^{(H) 33} seventy-two thousand oxen, ³⁴ sixty-one thousand donkeys, ³⁵ and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known a man by sleeping with him.