Numbers 16:31-40

Evangelical Heritage Version

³¹ As soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground beneath them split open. ³² The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up everyone who was with Korah, along with their households and all their possessions. ³³ So they and everything that belonged to them went down alive into the grave. The earth closed up over them, and they disappeared from the midst of the assembly. ³⁴ Hearing their screams, all the Israelites who were around them fled, because they said, “The earth will swallow us up too!” ³⁵ Fire went out from the Lord and consumed the two hundred fifty men who offered the incense.

³⁶ The Lord spoke to Moses:^{[a] 37} “Tell Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest to remove the censers from the burning debris and scatter the fire far away, for the censers are holy. ³⁸ Make the censers belonging to those who sinned at the cost of their own lives into hammered sheets for plating the altar, because they presented them before the Lord, and the censers are holy. They will serve as a sign to the Israelites.”

³⁹ Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers, which had been presented by those who had been burned up by fire. They hammered them into plating for the altar ⁴⁰ as a reminder to the Israelites that no unauthorized person, who is not from the descendants of Aaron, should come near to burn incense before the Lord and become like Korah and his followers. Eleazar the priest did just as the Lord said to him through Moses.