Numbers 23

²Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.

³Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.”

⁴God met Balaam, and he said to him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.”

⁵The LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”

⁶He returned to him, and behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.

⁷He took up his parable, and said,

⁸How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?

⁹For from the top of the rocks I see him.

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob,

¹¹Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them altogether.”

¹²He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD puts in my mouth?”

¹³Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, where you may see them. You shall see just part of them, and shall not see them all. Curse them from there for me.”

¹⁴He took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.

¹⁵He said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet God over there.”

¹⁶The LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”

¹⁷He came to him, and behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. Balak said to him, “What has the LORD spoken?”

¹⁸He took up his parable, and said,

¹⁹God is not a man, that he should lie,

²⁰Behold, I have received a command to bless.

²¹He has not seen iniquity in Jacob.

²²God brings them out of Egypt.

²³Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob;

²⁴Behold, a people rises up as a lioness.

²⁵Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.”

²⁶But Balaam answered Balak, “Didn’t I tell you, saying, ‘All that the LORD speaks, that I must do’?”

²⁷Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.”

²⁸Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that looks down on the desert.

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

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