5 Moses said to the officials, “Each of you is to kill every man in your tribe who has become a worshiper of Baal of Peor.”
6 One of the Israelites took a Midianite woman into his tent in the sight of Moses and the whole community, while they were mourning at the entrance of the Tent of the Lord's presence.
7 When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest, saw this, he got up and left the assembly. He took a spear,
8 followed the man and the woman into the tent, and drove the spear through both of them. In this way the epidemic that was destroying Israel was stopped,
9 but it had already killed twenty-four thousand people.
10 The Lord said to Moses,
11 “Because of what Phinehas has done, I am no longer angry with the people of Israel. He refused to tolerate the worship of any god but me, and that is why I did not destroy them in my anger.