Numbers 16:36-50

³⁶Again Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

³⁷“Speak to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest and let him take up the censers out of the flames, for the censers are set apart to me. Then let him scatter the burning coals at a distance.

³⁸Take the censers of those who lost their lives because of their sin. Let them be made into hammered plates as a covering over the altar. Those men did offer them before me, so they are set apart to me. They will be a sign of my presence to the people of Israel.”

³⁹Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers that had been used by the men who were burned up, and they were hammered out into a covering for the altar,

⁴⁰to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no outsider who was not descended from Aaron should come up to burn incense before Yahweh, so they might not become like Korah and his group—just as Yahweh had commanded through Moses.

⁴¹But the next morning all the community of the people of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron. They said, “You have killed Yahweh's people.”

⁴²Then it happened, when the community had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they looked toward the tent of meeting and, behold, the cloud was covering it. Yahweh's glory appeared,

⁴³and Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting.

⁴⁴Then Yahweh spoke to Moses. He said,

⁴⁵“Go away from in front of this community so that I may consume them immediately.” Then Moses and Aaron lay down with their faces to the ground.

⁴⁶Moses said to Aaron, “Take the censer, put fire in it from off the altar, put incense in it, carry it quickly to the community, and make atonement for them, because anger is coming from Yahweh. The plague has begun.”

⁴⁷So Aaron did as Moses directed. He ran into the middle of the community. The plague had quickly started to spread among the people, so he put in the incense and made atonement for the people.

⁴⁸Aaron stood between the dead and the living; in this way the plague was stopped.

⁴⁹Those who died by the plague were 14,700 in number, besides those who had died in the matter of Korah.

⁵⁰Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance to the tent of meeting, and the plague ended.