5. So there were delivered from the thousands of Israel a thousand of each tribe, twelve thousand armed for war.
6. Moses sent them to the war, a thousand from each tribe, with Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, with the holy vessels and the trumpets to sound the alarm in his hand.
7. They waged war against the Midianites, as the Lord commanded Moses, and they killed every male.
8. They killed the kings of Midian, in addition to the rest of those who were killed: Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian. Balaam the son of Beor they also killed with the sword.
9. The children of Israel returned with the women of Midian and their children and took their livestock, and all their flocks, and all their wealth for plunder.
10. They burned with fire all their cities in which they lived and all their camps.
11. They took all the plunder and all the prey of men and of beasts.
12. They brought the captives, the prey, and the plunder to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, to the assembly of the children of Israel, and to the camp on the plains of Moab, which are by Jordan across from Jericho.
13. Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the assembly went to meet them outside the camp.
14. Moses was angry with the officers of the army, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, who came from the battle.
15. Moses said to them, “Have you saved all the women alive?
16. These caused the children of Israel, through the word of Balaam, to act unfaithfully against the Lord concerning the thing of Peor, and there was a plague among the assembly of the Lord.
17. So now kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by lying with him.
18. But keep alive for yourselves all the young girls who have not known a man by lying with him.
19. “And you stay outside the camp seven days. Whoever has killed any person and whoever has touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day.
20. Purify all your clothes, and all that is made of skins, and all work of goats’ hair, and all things made of wood.”
21. Eleazar the priest said to the fighting men of Israel who went to the battle, “This is the ordinance of the law which the Lord commanded Moses:
22. Only the gold, and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead,
23. everything that can go through the fire, you will make it go through the fire, and it will be clean, but some of it will be purified with the water of purification, and all that cannot pass through the fire you will make go through the water.