Numbers 25:4,5

What an awful visitation is implied in these verses! For I would have the Reader remark, that nothing more is said of it, than it is the fierce anger of the LORD; and the dreadful effects are mentioned in the course of the chapter; that no less than four and twenty thousand of the people became the victims of it. Perhaps it was by the plague, or some other epidemical disease. Reader! behold in it the awful consequences of sin. You plainly perceive, that Israel's own sins did that, which all the machinations and enchantments of Balaam could not accomplish. GOD was turned (as the prophet speaks) to be their enemy, and fought against them, Isaiah 63:10.