They and all that they had went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed over them. So they perished from among the community.

So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers presented by those who had been burned up, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar.

“All the best of the olive oil and all the best of the wine and of the wheat, the first fruits of these things that they give to the Lord, I have given to you.

See, I have given the Levites all the tithes in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they perform – the service of the tent of meeting.

“‘This is the law: When a man dies in a tent, anyone who comes into the tent and all who are in the tent will be ceremonially unclean seven days.

And whoever touches the body of someone killed with a sword in the open fields, or the body of someone who died of natural causes, or a human bone, or a grave, will be unclean seven days.

Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardships we have experienced,

From there they moved on and camped on the other side of the Arnon, in the wilderness that extends from the regions of the Amorites, for Arnon is the border of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

And from there they traveled to Beer; that is the well where the Lord spoke to Moses, “Gather the people and I will give them water.”

“Let us pass through your land; we will not turn aside into the fields or into the vineyards, nor will we drink water from any well, but we will go along the King’s Highway until we pass your borders.”

For I will honor you greatly, and whatever you tell me I will do. So come, put a curse on this nation for me.’”

Then the angel of the Lord went farther, and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn either to the right or to the left.

But Balaam replied to Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘All that the Lord speaks, I must do’?”

Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not also tell your messengers whom you sent to me,

And now, I am about to go back to my own people. Come now, and I will advise you as to what this people will do to your people in the future.”

So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, and has made atonement for the Israelites.’”

Now the name of the Israelite who was stabbed – the one who was stabbed with the Midianite woman – was Zimri son of Salu, a leader of a clan of the Simeonites.

These are those who were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who numbered the Israelites in the plains of Moab along the Jordan River opposite Jericho.

But there was not a man among these who had been among those numbered by Moses and Aaron the priest when they numbered the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range, and see the land I have given to the Israelites.