Numbers 25:6

¹⁷Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, “Spare your people, LORD, and don’t give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

⁴Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this multitude will lick up all that is around us, as the ox licks up the grass of the field.” Balak the son of Zippor was king of Moab at that time.

¹⁹and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry. ²⁰The LORD will not pardon him, but then the LORD’s anger and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book will fall on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under the sky. ²¹The LORD will set him apart for evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

³⁰“‘But the soul who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native-born or a foreigner, blasphemes the LORD. That soul shall be cut off from among his people. ³¹Because he has despised the LORD’s word, and has broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity shall be on him.’”

³Therefore the showers have been withheld and there has been no latter rain; yet you have had a prostitute’s forehead and you refused to be ashamed.

¹²Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed. They couldn’t blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. In the time of their visitation they will be cast down, says the LORD.

¹⁴Now the name of the man of Israel that was slain, who was slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers’ house among the Simeonites. ¹⁵The name of the Midianite woman who was slain was Cozbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of a fathers’ house in Midian.

⁴The LORD said to him, “Go through the middle of the city, through the middle of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”

⁵To the others he said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him, and strike. Don’t let your eye spare, neither have pity. ⁶Kill utterly the old man, the young man, the virgin, little children and women; but don’t come near any man on whom is the mark. Begin at my sanctuary.” Then they began at the old men who were before the house.

⁴So Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces, and all the people, didn’t obey the LORD’s voice, to dwell in the land of Judah. ⁵But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah, who had returned from all the nations where they had been driven, to live in the land of Judah— ⁶the men, the women, the children, the king’s daughters, and every person who Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan; and Jeremiah the prophet, and Baruch the son of Neriah. ⁷They came into the land of Egypt, for they didn’t obey the LORD’s voice; and they came to Tahpanhes.

¹⁵now therefore hear the LORD’s word, O remnant of Judah! The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you indeed set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to live there, ¹⁶then it will happen that the sword, which you fear, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are afraid, will follow close behind you there in Egypt; and you will die there. ¹⁷So will it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to live there. They will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence. None of them will remain or escape from the evil that I will bring on them.’ ¹⁸For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and my wrath has been poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you, when you enter into Egypt; and you will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach; and you will see this place no more.’