¹ How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.

² The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!

³ Even the sea monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: the daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.

⁴ The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst: the young children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them.

⁵ They that did feed delicately are desolate in the streets: they that were brought up in scarlet embrace dunghills.

⁶ For the punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom, that was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands stayed on her.

⁷ Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire:

⁸ Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.

⁹ They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field.

¹⁰ The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people.

¹¹ The LORD hath accomplished his fury; he hath poured out his fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof.

¹² The kings of the earth, and all the inhabitants of the world, would not have believed that the adversary and the enemy should have entered into the gates of Jerusalem.

¹³ For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,

¹⁴ They have wandered as blind men in the streets, they have polluted themselves with blood, so that men could not touch their garments.

¹⁵ They cried unto them, Depart ye; it is unclean; depart, depart, touch not: when they fled away and wandered, they said among the heathen, They shall no more sojourn there.

¹⁶ The anger of the LORD hath divided them; he will no more regard them: they respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders.

¹⁷ As for us, our eyes as yet failed for our vain help: in our watching we have watched for a nation that could not save us.

¹⁸ They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets: our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come.

¹⁹ Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven: they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.

²⁰ The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the LORD, was taken in their pits, of whom we said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen.

²¹ Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom, that dwellest in the land of Uz; the cup also shall pass through unto thee: thou shalt be drunken, and shalt make thyself naked.

²² The punishment of thine iniquity is accomplished, O daughter of Zion; he will no more carry thee away into captivity: he will visit thine iniquity, O daughter of Edom; he will discover thy sins.

¹ Israel stayed in Shittim; and the people began to play the prostitute with the daughters of Moab:

² for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods; and the people ate, and bowed down to their gods.

³ Israel joined himself to Baal Peor: and the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Israel.

⁴ Yahweh said to Moses, "Take all the chiefs of the people, and hang them up to Yahweh before the sun, that the fierce anger of Yahweh may turn away from Israel."

⁵ Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Everyone kill his men who have joined themselves to Baal Peor."

⁶ Behold, one of the children 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 children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting.

⁷ 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 pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

⁹ Those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰ Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

¹¹ "Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I didn't consume the children of Israel in my jealousy.

¹² Therefore say, 'Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace:

¹³ and it shall be to him, and to his seed after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.'"

¹⁴ Now 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.

¹⁵ The 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.

¹⁶ Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,

¹⁷ "Harass the Midianites, and strike them;

¹⁸ for they harassed you with their wiles, with which they have deceived you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of the prince of Midian, their sister, who was slain on the day of the plague in the matter of Peor."