¹⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses and said, ⎣“Speak to the Israelites, saying,⎦^{[a] 17} ‘Treat the Midianites as enemies and strike them dead. ¹⁸ For they treated you as enemies when they deceived you with their treachery in the incident involving Peor and Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianite tribal chief, their sister, who was struck dead on the day of the plague in the Peor incident.’”