Israel settled and remained in Shittim, and the people began to play the prostitute with the women of Moab [by being unfaithful to God].

So Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each one of you must kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor [in worship].”

Moses sent them, a thousand from each tribe, to the war, and Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, to war with them, and the sacred vessels [of the sanctuary] and the trumpets to blow the alarm in his hand.