Numbers 25:4-9 - God's Punishment
4 And LORD said to Moses, Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to LORD before the sun, that the fierce anger of LORD may turn away from Israel.
5 And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Kill ye every one his men who have joined themselves to Baal-peor.
6 And, behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of mee 7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the midst of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. 8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stayed from the sons of Israel. 9 And those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.