Numbers 25:7-15

International Children’s Bible

⁷ Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this. So he left the meeting and got his spear. ⁸ He followed the Israelite into his tent. And he drove his spear through both the Israelite man and the Midianite woman. Then the terrible sickness among the Israelites stopped.

⁹ This sickness had killed 24,000 people.

¹⁰ The Lord said to Moses, ¹¹ “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has saved the Israelites from my anger. He is like I am in his concern for the people. He tried to save my honor among them. So I will not kill them. ¹² So tell Phinehas that I am making my peace agreement with him. ¹³ He and all his descendants will have an agreement. They will always be priests. This is because he had great concern for the honor of his God. He removed the sins of the Israelites so they would belong to God.”

¹⁴ The Israelite man who was killed with the Midianite woman was named Zimri son of Salu. He was the leader of a family in the tribe of Simeon. ¹⁵ And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur. Zur was the chief of a Midianite family.