Numbers 31:1-54
31 And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying
2 “Avenge the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you shall be gathered to your kinsfolk.”
3 And Moses spoke to the people, saying “Arm men from among you for an expedition, and they shall be against Midian to take Jehovah’s vengeance on Midian:
4 a thousand per tribe for all the tribes of Israel you shall send on the expedition.”
5 And there were tendered out of the thousands of Israel a thousand to a tribe, twelve thousand armed for the expedition.
6 And Moses sent them, a thousand to a tribe, on the expedition, them and Priest Eleazar’s son Pinehas with the sacred objects and the trumpets for the martial music in his hands;
7 and they went on the expedition against Midian as Jehovah had commanded Moses, and killed every male,
8 and killed the kings of Midian over the fallen, Evi and Rekem and Sur and Hur and Rebaʽ, the five kings of Midian; and Balaam the son of Be’or they killed with the sword;
9 * and they carried off as slaves the women and children of Midian, and made plunder of all their cattle and stock and all their wealth.
10 And all their cities in their settlements, and all their encampments, they burned up;
11 and they took all the booty, and all the captures of man and of beast,
12 and brought to Moses and Priest Eleazar and the congregation of the sons of Israel the slaves and the captures and the booty at the camp on the Moab flats by the Jordan at Jericho.
13 And Moses and Priest Eleazar and all the princes of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp;
14 and Moses was incensed at the officers of the force, the captains of thousands and of hundreds, who were coming in from the war expedition.
15 And Moses said to them “Have you left alive all females?
16 here it was they who at Balaam’s word became to the sons of Israel a seduction from Jehovah on the occasion of Peghor, and the plague came in Jehovah’s congregation.
17 Now kill every male among the children, and kill every woman who has known man in sexual embrace;
18 and all children among the women, who have never known sexual embrace, keep alive for yourselves.
19 And for yourselves camp outside the camp seven days; everybody who has killed a person and everybody who has touched a fallen man, clear away your sin on the third day and on the seventh, you and your captives.
20 And every garment and every article of leather and every fabric of goats’ hair and every article of wood you shall clear of sin.”
21 And Priest Eleazar said to the men of the expedition who were coming in from the war “This is the rule of the instruction Jehovah has enjoined on Moses.
22 Just the gold and silver and bronze and iron and tin and lead,
23 every substance that stands fire you shall put through fire and it will be clean, only it is to have its sin cleared away with pollution-water; and everything that does not stand fire you shall put through water.
24 And you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you shall come in to the camp.”
25 And Jehovah said to Moses
26 “Take the census of the captured drove of man and beast, you and Priest Eleazar and the heads of families of the congregation,
27 and halve the captures between the actual fighters who went on the expedition and the whole congregation.
28 And you shall levy a tax for Jehovah from the fighting men who went on the expedition; one person out of five hundred of the human beings and of the horned cattle and of the donkeys and of the small cattle
29 out of their half you shall take and give to Priest Eleazar as Jehovah’s contribution.
30 And out of the half for the sons of Israel you shall take one appropriated out of fifty of the human beings, of the horned cattle, of the donkeys, and of the small cattle, out of all the animals, and give them to the Levites who do duty about Jehovah’s tabernacle.”
31 And Moses and Priest Eleazar did as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
32 And the captures, the rest of the plunder the expeditionaries had plundered, came to six hundred and seventy-five thousand small cattle
33 and seventy-two thousand horned cattle
34 and sixty-one thousand donkeys,
35 and of human persons, out of the women who had never known sexual embrace, thirty-two thousand persons in all.
36 And half was the share of those who had gone out on the expedition: the number of small cattle was three hundred and thirty-seven thousand and five hundred,
37 and the tax for Jehovah out of the small cattle came to six hundred and seventy-five;
38 and of the horned cattle there were thirty-six thousand, and the tax of them for Jehovah was seventy-two;
39 and of donkeys there were thirty thousand and five hundred, and the tax of them for Jehovah was sixty-one;
40 and of human persons there were sixteen thousand, and the tax of them for Jehovah was thirty-two persons.
41 And Moses gave the tax of Jehovah’s contribution to Priest Eleazar as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
42 And of the half for the sons of Israel, which Moses divided off from the men that went on the expedition,
43 the congregation’s half of the small cattle came to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand and five hundred,
44 and horned cattle thirty-six thousand,
45 and donkeys thirty thousand and five hundred,
46 and human persons sixteen thousand;
47 and from the half for the sons of Israel Moses took what was appropriated, one out of fifty of the human beings and of the cattle, and gave them to the Levites who did duty about Jehovah’s tabernacle, as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
48 And the officers of the expeditionary thousands, the captains of thousands and of hundreds, approached Moses
49 and said to Moses “Your servants have gone over the roll of the fighting men under our command, and not a man of us was missing.
50 And we are presenting Jehovah’s oblation, what each one has found in articles of gold, armlet and bracelet, finger-ring, earring and bangle, to purge our souls before Jehovah.”
51 * And Moses and Priest Eleazar received the gold from them, every kind of wrought article;
52 and all the gold of the contribution they made to Jehovah came to eight thousand eight hundred ounces, from the captains of thousands and of hundreds.
53 The men of the expedition had plundered each for himself.
54 And Moses and Priest Eleazar received the gold from the captains of thousands and of hundreds and brought it into the Tent of Meeting as a memorial of the sons of Israel before Jehovah.
Footnotes
^ 31:9 Var. and the sons of Israel carried off
^ 31:51 Lit. every wrought article Of all in wrought form
