5So Moses instructed Israel's judges, “Each of you has to kill all of your men who have devoted themselves to worshiping Baal of Peor.”
6Right then an Israelite man brought a Midianite woman to his family tent in full view of Moses and all the Israelites as they were crying at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
7When he saw this, Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, left the assembly, grabbed a spear
8and followed the man into his tent. There Phinehas drove the spear through both of them, through the Israelite and on into the woman's stomach. This action stopped the plague that had started to kill the Israelites,
9but 24,000 had already died.
10The Lord told Moses,
11“Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, because out of all of them he was passionately dedicated to me, so I did not destroy the Israelites in my passionate anger.
12So make an announcement that I am granting him my peace agreement.