10. while they set on fire all the towns where they had settled and all their encampments.
11. Then they took all the plunder, with the people and animals they had captured, and brought the captives, together with the spoils and plunder,
12. to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the Israelite community at their camp on the plains of Moab by the Jordan opposite Jericho.
13. When Moses and Eleazar the priest, with all the leaders of the community, went outside the camp to meet them,
14. Moses became angry with the officers of the army, the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds, who were returning from the military campaign.
15. “So you have spared all the women!” he exclaimed.
16. “These are the very ones who on Balaam’s advice were behind the Israelites’ unfaithfulness to the Lord in the affair at Peor, so that plague struck the Lord’s community.
17. Now kill, therefore, every male among the children and kill every woman who has had sexual relations with a man.
18. But you may spare for yourselves all the girls who have not had sexual relations.
19. “Moreover, remain outside the camp for seven days; every one of you who has killed anyone or touched someone killed will purify yourselves on the third and on the seventh day—both you and your captives.
20. You will also purify every garment, every article of leather, everything made of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”
21. Eleazar the priest told the soldiers who had taken part in the battle: “This is the prescribed ritual which the Lord has commanded Moses:
22. gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin and lead—
23. whatever can stand fire—you shall put into the fire, that it may become clean; however, it must also be purified with water of purification. But whatever cannot stand fire you must put into the water.
24. On the seventh day you will wash your garments, and then you will again be clean. After that you may enter the camp.”
25. The Lord said to Moses:
26. With the help of Eleazar the priest and of the heads of the ancestral houses of the community, inventory all the spoils captured, human being and beast alike;