Numbers 23:27-26:18

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

²⁷ So Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.” ²⁸ So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland.^{[a] 29} Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” ³⁰ So Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

Balaam’s Third Oracle

24 Now Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, so he did not go, as at other times, to look for omens, but set his face toward the wilderness. ² Balaam looked up and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. Then the spirit of God came upon him, ³ and he uttered his oracle, saying:

¹⁰ Then Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. Balak said to Balaam, “I summoned you to curse my enemies, but instead you have blessed them these three times. ¹¹ Now be off with you! Go home! I said, ‘I will reward you richly,’ but the Lord has denied you any reward.” ¹² And Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me, ¹³ ‘If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord, to do either good or bad of my own will; what the Lord says, that is what I will say’? ¹⁴ So now, I am going to my people; let me advise you what this people will do to your people in days to come.”

Balaam’s Fourth Oracle

¹⁵ So he uttered his oracle, saying:

²⁰ Then he looked on Amalek, and uttered his oracle, saying:

²¹ Then he looked on the Kenite, and uttered his oracle, saying:

²³ Again he uttered his oracle, saying:

²⁵ Then Balaam got up and went back to his place, and Balak also went his way.

Worship of Baal of Peor

25 While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab. ² These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³ Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel. ⁴ The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the Lord, in order that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” ⁵ And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”

⁶ Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. ⁷ When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand, ⁸ he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel. ⁹ Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰ The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: ¹¹ “Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites. ¹² Therefore say, ‘I hereby grant him my covenant of peace. ¹³ It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the Israelites.’”

¹⁴ The name of the slain Israelite man, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, head of an ancestral house belonging to the Simeonites. ¹⁵ The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, who was the head of a clan, an ancestral house in Midian.

¹⁶ The Lord said to Moses, ¹⁷ “Harass the Midianites, and defeat them; ¹⁸ for they have harassed you by the trickery with which they deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister; she was killed on the day of the plague that resulted from Peor.”

A Census of the New Generation

26 After the plague the Lord said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, ² “Take a census of the whole congregation of the Israelites, from twenty years old and upward, by their ancestral houses, everyone in Israel able to go to war.” ³ Moses and Eleazar the priest spoke with them in the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho, saying, ⁴ “Take a census of the people,^[k] from twenty years old and upward,” as the Lord commanded Moses.

The Israelites, who came out of the land of Egypt, were:

⁵ Reuben, the firstborn of Israel. The descendants of Reuben: of Hanoch, the clan of the Hanochites; of Pallu, the clan of the Palluites; ⁶ of Hezron, the clan of the Hezronites; of Carmi, the clan of the Carmites. ⁷ These are the clans of the Reubenites; the number of those enrolled was forty-three thousand seven hundred thirty. ⁸ And the descendants of Pallu: Eliab. ⁹ The descendants of Eliab: Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. These are the same Dathan and Abiram, chosen from the congregation, who rebelled against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah, when they rebelled against the Lord, ¹⁰ and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up along with Korah, when that company died, when the fire devoured two hundred fifty men; and they became a warning. ¹¹ Notwithstanding, the sons of Korah did not die.

¹² The descendants of Simeon by their clans: of Nemuel, the clan of the Nemuelites; of Jamin, the clan of the Jaminites; of Jachin, the clan of the Jachinites; ¹³ of Zerah, the clan of the Zerahites; of Shaul, the clan of the Shaulites.^{[l] 14} These are the clans of the Simeonites, twenty-two thousand two hundred.

¹⁵ The children of Gad by their clans: of Zephon, the clan of the Zephonites; of Haggi, the clan of the Haggites; of Shuni, the clan of the Shunites; ¹⁶ of Ozni, the clan of the Oznites; of Eri, the clan of the Erites; ¹⁷ of Arod, the clan of the Arodites; of Areli, the clan of the Arelites. ¹⁸ These are the clans of the Gadites: the number of those enrolled was forty thousand five hundred.