5 Moses told Israel's officials, “Each of you must put to death any of your men who worshipped Baal.”
6 Later, Moses and the people were at the sacred tent, crying, when one of the Israelite men brought a Midianite woman to meet his family.
7 Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, saw the couple and left the crowd. He found a spear
8 and followed the man into his tent, where he ran the spear through the man and into the woman's stomach. The Lord immediately stopped punishing Israel with a deadly disease,
9 but twenty-four thousand Israelites had already died.
10 The Lord said to Moses,
11 “In my anger, I would have wiped out the Israelites if Phinehas had not been faithful to me.