By the merit of the three patriarchs, the three angels, Wrath, Anger, and Temper, were restrained from (doing harm to) Israel. But two (angels) remained. Moses spake before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of all the universe! For the sake of the oath which Thou didst swear unto them, keep back (the angel) Destruction || from Israel, as it is said, "To whom thou swarest by thine own self" (ibid.); and Destruction was kept back from Israel, as it is said, "But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed (them) not" (Ps. 78:88).
Moses spake before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of all worlds! For the sake of Thy great and holy Name, which Thou didst make known unto me, hold back from Israel (the angel called) Glow of Anger, (as it is said,) "Turn away from thy fierce anger" (Ex. 32:12). What did Moses do? He dug in the earth in the possession of Gad, as (though for the foundation of) a large dwelling, and he buried "Fierce Anger" in the earth, like a man who is bound in the prison.
Every time Israel sins it arises and opens its mouth to bite with its breath, and to destroy Israel. Moses pronounced against it the (divine) Name, and brought it down beneath the earth. Therefore is its name called Peor (the one who opens). When Moses died, what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do?
He put his burial-place opposite to it. Every time Israel sins it opens its mouth to bite with its breath, and to destroy Israel, but (when) it sees the burial-place of Moses opposite to it, it returns backward, as it is said, "And he buried him in the valley, in the land of Moab, over against the house of Peor" (Deut. 34:6).