Numbers 23

1Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”

2Balak did as Balaam had said, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

3Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offering while I go off. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went off to a barren height.

4God met Balaam, and Balaam said to him, “I have set up seven altars, and I have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.”

5Yahweh put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and say this.”

6So he went back to him, and there was Balak standing beside his burnt offering, with all the officials of Moab.

7Then Balaam spoke his oracle: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the mountains of the east. ‘Come, curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.’

8How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom Yahweh has not denounced?

9From the top of the rocks I see him; from the hills I watch him. Here is a people that lives apart and does not count itself among the nations.

10Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!”

11Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”

12He answered, “Must I not be careful to say what Yahweh puts in my mouth?”

13Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place where you can see them. You will see only the edge of them, not all of them. Curse them for me from there.”

14So he took him to the field of Zophim, on the top of Pisgah. There he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

15Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offering while I go to meet him over there.”

16Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and say this.”

17So he went to him, and there was Balak standing beside his burnt offering, with the officials of Moab. Balak asked him, “What did Yahweh say?”

18Then Balaam spoke his oracle: “Get up, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.

19God is not a man, that he would lie, or a human being, that he would change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill it?

20I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.

21He has not looked on wrongdoing in Jacob or seen trouble in Israel. Yahweh his God is with him; the shout of a king is in his midst.

22God brings them out of Egypt; he has the strength of a wild ox.

23There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. Now it will be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’

24Look, a people rises up like a lioness and rouses itself like a lion. It does not lie down until it devours its prey and drinks the blood of the slain.”

25Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all!”

26But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘I must do whatever Yahweh says’?”

27Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, please, and I will take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.”

28So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks Jeshimon.

29Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”

30Balak did as Balaam had said, and he offered a bull and a ram on each altar.