Numbers 31:15-40

15And Moses said to them, “Have you 1spared 2all the women? 163Behold, they caused the sons of Israel, through the 4counsel of 5Balaam, to be unfaithful to the Lord in the matter of Peor, so that the plague took place among the congregation of the Lord! 176Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man 7intimately. 18However, all the 8girls who have not known a 9man intimately, keep alive for yourselves. 1910And as for you, camp outside the camp for seven days; whoever has killed a person and whoever has touched anyone killed, purify yourselves, you and your captives, on the third day and on the seventh day. 20And you shall purify for yourselves every garment, every article of leather, every work of goats’ hair, and every article of wood.”

21Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone to battle, “This is the statute of the Law which the Lord has commanded Moses: 22only the gold and the silver, the bronze, the iron, the tin, and the lead, 23everything that can 11withstand the fire, you shall pass through the fire, and it will be clean, only it shall be purified with 12water for impurity. But whatever cannot 13withstand the fire you shall pass through the water. 24And you shall wash your clothes on the seventh day and you will be clean; and afterward you may enter the camp.”

25Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 26“You and Eleazar the priest and the heads of the fathers’ households of the congregation take a count of the spoils 14that were captured, both of people and of livestock; 27and 15divide the spoils between the warriors who went to battle and all the congregation. 28Also, 16collect a tribute tax for the Lord from the men of war who went to battle, one 17in five hundred of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys, and of the sheep; 29take it from their half and give it to Eleazar the priest, as an 18offering to the Lord. 30And from the sons of Israel’s half, you shall take one drawn from every fifty of the persons, of the cattle, of the donkeys, and of the sheep, from all the animals; and give them to the Levites who 19perform the duty of the tabernacle of the Lord.” 31Moses and Eleazar the priest did just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

32Now the spoils that remained from the plunder which the 20men of war had plundered was 675,000 sheep, 33seventy-two thousand cattle, 34sixty-one thousand donkeys, 35and of captive people, of the women who had not known a 21man intimately, in all were thirty-two thousand people.

36The half, the share of those who went to war, was as follows: the number of sheep was 337,500, 37the Lord’s tribute tax of the sheep was 675; 38the cattle were thirty-six thousand, from which the Lord’s tribute tax was seventy-two; 39the donkeys were 30,500, from which the Lord’s tribute tax was sixty-one; 40and the captive people were sixteen thousand, from whom the Lord’s tribute tax was thirty-two persons.