Numbers 31:17-18

"Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves" (Numbers 31:17-18 RSV).

 

Comment:

I know, right? This is probably the low point in the oral history of the Hebrew people that later took form as the Book of Numbers. (In the Jewish faith, the same text is known more helpfully as In the Wilderness.) It's easy—and tempting—to use a passage such as this as a justification for dismissing the whole Bible and the faiths that use it. I know. I did myself for a long time.