Numbers 23
- Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
- And Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
- Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the LORD will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a desolate height.
- And God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.”
- Then the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
- So he returned to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab.
- And he took up his oracle and said: “Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram, From the mountains of the east. ‘Come, curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!’
- “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?
- For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him; There! A people dwelling alone, Not reckoning itself among the nations.
- “Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number one–fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my end be like his!”
- Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed them bountifully!”
- So he answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak what the LORD has put in my mouth?”
- Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only the outer part of them, and shall not see them all; curse them for me from there.”
- So he brought him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
- And he said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering while I meet the LORD over there.”
- Then the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Go back to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
- So he came to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab were with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the LORD spoken?”
- Then he took up his oracle and said: “Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, son of Zippor!
- “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
- Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.
- “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a King is among them.
- God brings them out of Egypt; He has strength like a wild ox.
- “For there is no sorcery against Jacob, Nor any divination against Israel. It now must be said of Jacob And of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done!’
- Look, a people rises like a lioness, And lifts itself up like a lion; It shall not lie down until it devours the prey, And drinks the blood of the slain.”
- Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all!”
- So Balaam answered and said to Balak, “Did I not tell you, saying, ‘All that the LORD speaks, that I must do’?”
- Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.”
- So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that overlooks the wasteland.
- Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
- And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on every altar.