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[141]
Even Zimri, the head of the tribe of Simeon accompanied with Cozbi,
a Midianitish women, who was the daughter of Sur, a man of authority in
that country; and being desired by his wife to disregard the laws of Moses,
and to follow those she was used to, he complied with her, and this both
by sacrificing after a manner different from his own, and by taking a stranger
to wife. When things were thus, Moses was afraid that matters should grow
worse, and called the people to a congregation, but then accused nobody
by name, as unwilling to drive those into despair who, by lying concealed,
might come to repentance; but he said that they did not do what was either
worthy of themselves, or of their fathers, by preferring pleasure to God,
and to the living according to his will; that it was fit they should change
their courses while their affairs were still in a good state, and think
that to be true fortitude which offers not violence to their laws, but
that which resists their lusts. And besides that, he said it was not a
reasonable thing, when they had lived soberly in the wilderness, to act
madly now when they were in prosperity; and that they ought not to lose,
now they have abundance, what they had gained when they had little: - and
so did he endeavor, by saying this, to correct the young inert, and to
bring them to repentance for what they had done.
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