Pinchas

After Pinchas avenges Hashem's honor by slaying Zimri & the Midianite princess, Hashem tells Moshe; צרור את המדינים והכיתם אותם, antagonize the Midianites and smite them. The בן איש חי asks, why does it have to say צרור את המדינים antagonize the Midianites when it says והכיתם אותם smite them. Is there any greater antagonizing than killing them?

Additionally, the next posuk gives the reason as כי צררים הם לכם , because they antagonized you. The real reason is because they caused them to sin. Shouldn't it have said כי החטיאו לכם, because they caused them to sin ?

The Midrash says that we learn from here that one who causes his friend to sin is worse that one who kills his friend. The reason for this is that one who kills his friend removes him from this world, but one who causes his friend to sin removes him from this world & the world to come. There were two nations who tried to physically destroy us: Edom & Egypt, & two who tried to destroy us spiritually: Ammon & Moav.
Regarding Edom & Egypt the Torah tells us לא תתעב do not abhor them, but regarding Ammon & Moav it says 'לא יבא עמוני ומואבי בקהל ה, the Ammoni & Moavi can never be part of the Jewish people for it's worse the one who causes others to sin than the one who kills us. Therefore it says צרור את המדינים, antagonize them.

The sefer Zichron Meir says that we really see this concept from the pesukim themselves. The Midianites did two things to the Jews. First, they caused them to sin & second the caused thousands to die in a plague. The sin that they committed is stated explicitly in the pesukim, however the plague where thousands died is only hinted at, showing that the Torah's viewpoint is that spiritual devastation is worse than physical devastation. However, by people it's usually the opposite. If someone caused physical harm to someone he won't be forgiven & whomever he damaged will try to get retribution. On the other hand, When if someone caused someone else to sin its usually forgiven with great benevolence.

There's a story told about הגאון רב משה פיינשטיין. When he was a Rav in Russia there was a Jew in town who was disenchanted & would make tremendous problems for the other Jews in town. He would constantly run to the government to tell them what they Jews had done wrong. One day this man got very sick & was about to die. On his deathbed he gave a note to the chevra kadisha that said he regrets all the trouble he put everyone through & wants forgiveness for his wrong doing. He asked that they bury him like an animal outside the graveyard in disgrace, & that way he will have some atonement for his sins.

The chevra kadisha came to Reb Moshe to ask what to do. He answered that according to halacha one is not in charge of his body, therefore he cannot control what happens to his body after his death. Therefore, we must do like the halacha requires & give him a regular Jewish burial. They were bewildered. Here the man wants us to disgrace him so that he can get forgiveness for his sins, so why can't we do it? Rav Moshe answered, our job is to do what the halacha states & not what a person wants. Therefore, we have to bury him like tha halacha states & that is a regular burial. So they did as he told them.
Some time goes by & the caretaker of the graveyard sees people from the government are coming to check up on this mans grave even going so far as to open up the grave to see what's inside. The caretaker went over to them to see what was going on. They told him that this man had sent them a letter before he died saying that the Jews hated him because he would snitch to the government & that they would bury him like an animal in disgrace, so they were checking to see how he was buried. If it was in fact true, the whole town would suffer. When the caretaker told the people of the town what happened they all saw how right Rav Moshe was by sticking to the Halacha.

Maybe that's why it says צררים הם לכם, because they antagonized you, instead of because they caused you to sin, to teach us this lesson. If someone causes you to sin it should be antagonizing to you & you shouldn't just brush it off.
The reason why it also says to antagonize them when it says to kill them, is to teach us a lesson. Killing them was only able to be done at that time, not in today's times. Therefore it says to antagonize them to teach us that when someone tries to get you to sin you have to antagonize them & get them away from you & not be nice & forgiving, for when it comes to Torah values we have to be strong & unyielding.
If we can strengthen ourselves to avoid temptation we will be one step closer to the coming of Moshiach in our day!