על החוקים לפרטיהם, ספר ג כ״בOn the Special Laws, Book III 22
א׳
1[124] The first reason for this is as follows: the aforesaid tribe received the cities as a reward for a righteous slaughter which we must regard as the most illustrious act of heroism that has ever been achieved.
ב׳
2[125] When the prophet, summoned up to the highest and most sacred mountain in that region, was receiving from God the heads which sum up the particular laws, and had disappeared for several days, the born enemies of peace had diffused through every part of the camp the vices that spring up in the ruler’s absence and had crowned them with impiety. They mocked at the most excellent and admirable injunctions which bade them honour the truly existing God, constructed a golden bull in imitation of the vanity of Egypt, offered sacrifices which were no sacrifices, held feasts which were no feasts and danced dances of death with songs and hymns which should have been dirges.
ג׳
3[126] Then this same tribe, sorely distressed at the sudden backsliding and fired with zeal by their heart-felt hatred of evil, every man of them filled with rage, frenzied, possessed, took arms as if at one signal, and despising all thoughts of danger mowed down their foes drunk with the twofold intoxication of impiety and wine. They began with their nearest and dearest, for they acknowledged no love nor kinship but God’s love, and in the space of a few hours 24,000 had fallen whose fate served as a warning through fear that they might suffer the like to those who were on the brink of sharing their delusion.
ד׳
4[127] This campaign, waged spontaneously and instinctively on behalf of piety and holiness towards the truly existing God and fraught with much danger to those who undertook it, was approved by none other than the Father of all Who took it upon Himself to judge the cause of those who wrought the slaughter, declared them pure from any curse of bloodguiltiness and gave them the priesthood as a reward for their gallantry.