Chapter 31
1 The Lord said to Moses,
2 "Before you die, make sure that the Midianites are punished for what they did to Israel."
3 Then Moses told the people, "The Lord wants to punish the Midianites. So tell our men to prepare for battle.
4 Each tribe will send 1,000 men to fight."
5 Twelve thousand men were picked from the tribes of Israel, and after they were prepared for battle,
6 Moses sent them off to war. Phinehas the son of Eleazar went with them and took along some things from the sacred tent and the trumpets for sounding the battle signal.
7 The Israelites fought against the Midianites, just as the Lord had commanded Moses. They killed all the men,
8 including Balaam son of Beor and the five Midianite kings, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba.
9 The Israelites captured every woman and child, then led away the Midianites' cattle and sheep, and took everything else that belonged to them.
10 They also burned down the Midianite towns and villages.
11 Israel’s soldiers gathered together everything they had taken from the Midianites, including the captives and the animals.
12 Moses became angry with the army commanders
13 and said, "I can’t believe you let the women live!
14 They are the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and invited our people to worship the god Baal Peor. That’s why the Lord punished us by killing so many of our people.
15 You must put to death every boy and all the women who have ever had sex.
16 But do not kill the young women who have never had sex. You may keep them for yourselves."
17 Then Moses said to the soldiers, "If you killed anyone or touched a dead body, you are unclean and have to stay outside the camp for seven days. On the third and seventh days, you must go through a ceremony to make yourselves and your captives clean.
18 Then wash your clothes and anything made from animal skin, goat’s hair, or wood."
19 Wash your clothes on the seventh day, and after that, you will be clean and may return to the camp."
20 The Lord told Moses:
21 From the half that belongs to the people, set aside one out of every 50 and give these to the Levites in charge of the sacred tent.
22 Moses and Eleazar followed the Lord 's instructions
23 The army commanders went to Moses
24 and said, "Sir, we have counted our troops, and not one soldier is missing.
25 So we want to give the Lord all the gold jewelry we took from the Midianites. It’s our gift to him for watching over us and our troops."
26 Moses and Eleazar accepted the jewelry from the commanders,
27 and its total weight was over 200 kilograms.
28 This did not include the things that the soldiers had kept for themselves.
29 So Moses and Eleazar placed the gold in the Lord 's sacred tent to remind Israel of what had happened.