¹And the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ²“Take vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites, and afterwards you will be gathered to your people.” ³So Moses spoke to the people and said, “Let a group of your men be armed for war, and confront Midian, to take the Lord's vengeance on Midian. ⁴You will send a thousand men for each tribe – for all the tribes of Israel – to war.” ⁵So one thousand men per tribe, from the thousands of Israel, were handed over – twelve thousand men armed for war. ⁶And Moses sent them to war – a thousand per tribe, with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to war. And he had the holy instruments and the trumpets for sounding in his hand. ⁷And they went to war against Midian, as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed all males. ⁸And they killed the kings of Midian among those defeated by them, Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba – the five kings of Midian – and they killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword. ⁹And the sons of Israel took the women of Midian captive, and their children, and they plundered all their cattle and all their property and all their wealth. ¹⁰And they burned with fire all their cities in their inhabited areas, and all their palaces. ¹¹And they took all the spoil and all the booty by way of people and cattle. ¹²And they brought the captives and the booty and the spoil to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel at the camp in the arid tracts of Moab, which were near the Jordan at Jericho. ¹³And Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them, outside the camp. ¹⁴But Moses was angry with the officers in the army – the commanders of a thousand and the commanders of a hundred – who came from the army which fought the war. ¹⁵And Moses said to them, “Have you kept all the females alive? ¹⁶Look, they came to the sons of Israel in the incident with Balaam, to stir up treachery against the Lord in the affair of Peor, and there was a plague in the Lord's congregation. ¹⁷So now, kill all the males among the children, and kill every woman who has known a man in lying with a male. ¹⁸But keep all the female children who have not known lying with a male, alive, for yourselves. ¹⁹And encamp outside the camp for seven days, everyone who kills a person and everyone who touches those slain. Have yourselves propitiated, you and your captives, on the third day and on the seventh day. ²⁰And have every garment and every leather item, and every product of goats and every wooden article propitiated.” ²¹Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of the army who went to war, “This is the statute of the law which the Lord commanded Moses. ²²But as for the gold and the silver, the copper, the iron, the tin and the lead – ²³every item that can go through fire – pass it through fire, and it will be clean, but it will be propitiated by water of impurity, and pass everything that cannot go through fire through the water. ²⁴And you will wash your clothes on the seventh day, and you will be clean, and afterwards you can come to the camp.” ²⁵Then the Lord spoke to Moses and said, ²⁶“Hold a census of the captives taken – of the people and the cattle – you and Eleazar the priest, and the paternal heads of the congregation, ²⁷and divide what was taken into two, between those who undertook the war, who went out in the army, and the whole congregation. ²⁸And you will raise a levy for the Lord from the men of war who went out to battle: one individual in five hundred, from the people and from the oxen, and from the donkeys and from the sheep. ²⁹You will take them from their half and give them to Eleazar the priest, as a heave-offering to the Lord. ³⁰And from the half for the sons of Israel you will take one part in fifty from the people, from the oxen, from the donkeys and from the sheep – from all the cattle – and give them to the Levites, who keep the observance of the Lord's tabernacle.” ³¹And Moses and Eleazar the priest acted according to what the Lord had commanded Moses. ³²And what was taken – the remainder of the plunder which the people of the army plundered – amounted to six hundred and seventy-five thousand sheep, ³³and seventy-two thousand oxen, ³⁴and sixty-one thousand donkeys, ³⁵and people, from the women who had not known lying with a male: thirty-two thousand people in all. ³⁶And of the half for the part which went out to battle, the number of sheep amounted to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred. ³⁷And the levy for the Lord from the sheep was six hundred and seventy-five. ³⁸And the oxen amounted to thirty-six thousand, and their levy for the Lord was seventy-two. ³⁹And the donkeys amounted to thirty thousand five hundred, and their levy for the Lord was sixty-one. ⁴⁰And the people amounted to sixteen thousand, and their levy for the Lord was thirty-two people. ⁴¹And Moses gave the levy as a heave-offering for the Lord to Eleazar the priest, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁴²And from the half for the sons of Israel which Moses divided from the spoil of the men who fought, ⁴³the half for the congregation: of the sheep the number amounted to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand five hundred, ⁴⁴and the oxen amounted to thirty-six thousand, ⁴⁵and the donkeys amounted to thirty thousand five hundred, ⁴⁶and the people amounted to sixteen thousand. ⁴⁷And Moses took from the half for the sons of Israel one part in fifty from the people and from the cattle, and he gave them to the Levites who kept the observance of the Lord's tabernacle, as the Lord had commanded Moses. ⁴⁸Then the officers who were over the thousands of the army – the commanders of a thousand and the commanders of a hundred – approached Moses ⁴⁹and said to Moses, “Your servants have held a census of the men of war who were under our authority, and not a man of us is missing. ⁵⁰And we have performed the Lord's oblation, each one who found an item of gold – a bangle or a bracelet, a ring or an earring or a brooch – to atone for ourselves before the Lord.” ⁵¹And Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from them – all the items of craftsmanship. ⁵²And all the gold of the heave-offering which they heaved to the Lord amounted to sixteen thousand seven hundred and fifty shekels, from the commanders of a thousand and from the commanders of a hundred. ⁵³The men of the army took spoil – each for himself. ⁵⁴And Moses and Eleazar the priest took the gold from the commanders of a thousand and the commanders of a hundred and brought it to the tent of contact, as a memorial to the sons of Israel before the Lord.