Numbers 16:31-40

New King James Version

^31 (A)Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, ³² and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and ^(B)all the men with Korah, with all their goods. ³³ So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly. ³⁴ Then all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, “Lest the earth swallow us up also!”

³⁵ And ^(C)a fire came out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense.

³⁶ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ³⁷ “Tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, to pick up the censers out of the blaze, for ^(D)they are holy, and scatter the fire some distance away. ³⁸ The censers of ^(E)these men who sinned ^[a]against their own souls, let them be made into hammered plates as a covering for the altar. Because they presented them before the Lord, therefore they are holy; ^(F)and they shall be a sign to the children of Israel.” ³⁹ So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which those who were burned up had presented, and they were hammered out as a covering on the altar, ⁴⁰ to be a ^[b]memorial to the children of Israel ^(G)that no outsider, who is not a descendant of Aaron, should come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he might not become like Korah and his companions, just as the Lord had said to him through Moses.