Numbers 25:1

lest you cut a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invite you to eat of his sacrifice,

“Be hostile to the Midianites and strike them,

“Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people.”

“Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the word of Balaam, to act unfaithfully against Yahweh in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of Yahweh.

They camped by the Jordan, from Beth-jeshimoth as far as Abel-shittim in the plains of Moab.

“So we remained in the valley opposite Beth-peor.

“Your eyes have seen what Yahweh has done in the case of Baal-peor, for all the men who walked after Baal-peor, Yahweh your God has destroyed them from among you.

‘Who ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, Let them be your hiding place!

Then Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim, saying, “Go, see the land, especially Jericho.” So they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab and lodged there.

‘Is the iniquity of Peor too small a thing for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, although there was a plague on the congregation of Yahweh?

And also all the Jews, who were in Moab and among the sons of Ammon and in Edom and who were in all the other lands, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant for Judah and that he had appointed over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan.

“But the children rebelled against Me; they did not walk in My statutes, nor were they careful to do My judgments, which, if a man does them, he will live by them; they profaned My sabbaths. So I said I would pour out My wrath on them, to spend My anger against them in the wilderness.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the earliest fruit on the fig tree in its first season. But they came to Baal-peor and devoted themselves to shame, And they became as detestable as that which they loved.

“My people, remember now What Balak king of Moab counseled And what Balaam son of Beor answered him, And from Shittim to Gilgal, So that you might know the righteous acts of Yahweh.”

Nor let us act in sexual immorality, as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in one day.

‘But I have a few things against you, that you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality.

Israel Sacrifices to Baal