Numbers 30:2-31:12

New King James Version

²^(A)If a man makes a vow to the Lord, or ^(B)swears an oath to bind himself by some agreement, he shall not break his word; he shall ^(C)do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

³“Or if a woman makes a vow to the Lord, and binds herself by some agreement while in her father’s house in her youth, ⁴and her father hears her vow and the agreement by which she has bound herself, and her father ^[a]holds his peace, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement with which she has bound herself shall stand. ⁵But if her father overrules her on the day that he hears, then none of her vows nor her agreements by which she has bound herself shall stand; and the Lord will release her, because her father overruled her.

⁶“If indeed she takes a husband, while bound by her vows or by a rash utterance from her lips by which she bound herself, ⁷and her husband hears it, and makes no response to her on the day that he hears, then her vows shall stand, and her agreements by which she bound herself shall stand. ⁸But if her husband ^(D)overrules her on the day that he hears it, he shall make void her vow which she took and what she uttered with her lips, by which she bound herself, and the Lord will release her.

⁹“Also any vow of a widow or a divorced woman, by which she has bound herself, shall stand against her.

¹⁰“If she vowed in her husband’s house, or bound herself by an agreement with an oath, ¹¹and her husband heard it, and made no response to her and did not overrule her, then all her vows shall stand, and every agreement by which she bound herself shall stand. ¹²But if her husband truly made them void on the day he heard them, then whatever proceeded from her lips concerning her vows or concerning the agreement binding her, it shall not stand; her husband has made them ^[b]void, and the Lord will release her. ¹³Every vow and every binding oath to afflict her soul, her husband may confirm it, or her husband may make it void. ¹⁴Now if her husband makes no response whatever to her from day to day, then he confirms all her vows or all the agreements that bind her; he confirms them, because he made no response to her on the day that he heard them. ¹⁵But if he does make them void after he has heard them, then he shall bear her guilt.”

¹⁶These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter in her youth in her father’s house.

Vengeance on the Midianites

31 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ²^(E)“Take vengeance on the Midianites for the children of Israel. Afterward you shall ^(F)be gathered to your people.”

³So Moses spoke to the people, saying, “Arm some of yourselves for war, and let them go against the Midianites to take vengeance for the Lord on ^(G)Midian. ⁴A thousand from each tribe of all the tribes of Israel you shall send to the war.”

⁵So there were recruited from the divisions of Israel one thousand from each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war. ⁶Then Moses sent them to the war, one thousand from each tribe; he sent them to the war with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the holy articles and ^(H)the signal trumpets in his hand. ⁷And they warred against the Midianites, just as the Lord commanded Moses, and ^(I)they killed all the ^(J)males. ⁸They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of those who were killed—^(K)Evi, Rekem, ^(L)Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. ^(M)Balaam the son of Beor they also killed with the sword.

⁹And the children of Israel took the women of Midian captive, with their little ones, and took as spoil all their cattle, all their flocks, and all their goods. ¹⁰They also burned with fire all the cities where they dwelt, and all their forts. ¹¹And ^(N)they took all the spoil and all the booty—of man and beast.

Return from the War

¹²Then they brought the captives, the booty, and the spoil to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of the children of Israel, to the camp in the plains of Moab by the Jordan, across from Jericho.