Lexham English Bible

Numbers 31:11-31 Lexham English Bible (LEB)

11. They took all the plunder and all the war-booty with the humans and domestic animals.

12. They brought the captives, the war-booty, and the plunder to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest, and to the community of the Israelites, to the camp to the desert-plateau of Moab, which was on the Jordan across Jericho.

13. And Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went out to meet them outside the camp.

14. But Moses was angry toward the leaders of the troops, the commanders of the thousands and the commanders of the hundreds, who came from the battle of the war.

15. And Moses said to them, “You have kept alive every female?

16. Behold, these women caused the Israelites, by the word of Balaam, to be in apostasy against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, so that the plague was among the community of Yahweh.

17. Now kill every male among the little children, and kill every woman who has had sexual intercourse with a man.

18. But all the females who have not had sexual intercourse with a man, keep alive for yourselves.

19. And you, camp outside the camp seven days; all who killed a person and all who touched the slain purify yourselves on the third day and on the seventh day, you and your captives.

20. You will purify yourselves and every garment and every object of hide and all the work of goats’ hair, and every object of wood.”

21. Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of the battle who came from the war, “This is the decree of the law that Yahweh commanded Moses.

22. Only the gold and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead—

23. everything that will go through the fire—you will pass through the fire, and it will be clean, and only in waters of impurity will it be purified. Whatever does not go into the fire you will pass through the waters.

24. And you will wash your garments on the seventh day and be clean, and afterward you will come into the camp.”

25. Yahweh said to Moses, saying,

26. “You and Eleazar the priest and the leaders of the families of the community, take count of the war-booty that was captured, both humans and the domestic animals;

27. divide the war-booty between those who engaged in the war, who went out to the battle, and all the community.

28. Exact a tribute for Yahweh from the men of the war, those who went out to the battle, one from five hundred persons, and from the cattle and from the male donkeys and from the flock;

29. take from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest as a contribution to Yahweh.

30. From half of the Israelites, take one share drawn by lot from the fifty from the humans, from the cattle, from the male donkeys, from the flock, from all the domestic animals, and give them to the Levities who keep the responsibilities of the tabernacle of Yahweh.”

31. Moses and Eleazar the priest did just as Yahweh commanded Moses.