23Numbers 23

1Balaam said to Balak, “Build here seven altars for me, and prepare here seven bulls and seven rams for me.”Select Numbers 23:1

2Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.Select Numbers 23:2

3Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” He went to a bare height.Select Numbers 23:3

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.”Select Numbers 23:4

5Yahweh put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”Select Numbers 23:5

6He returned to him, and behold, he was standing by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.Select Numbers 23:6

7He took up his parable, and said, “From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.Select Numbers 23:7

8How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How shall I defy whom Yahweh has not defied?Select Numbers 23:8

9For from the top of the rocks I see him. From the hills I see him. Behold, it is a people that dwells alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.Select Numbers 23:9

10Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous! Let my last end be like his!”Select Numbers 23:10

11Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them altogether.”Select Numbers 23:11

12He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which Yahweh puts in my mouth?”Select Numbers 23:12

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.”Select Numbers 23:13

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.Select Numbers 23:14

15He said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet over there.”Select Numbers 23:15

16Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”Select Numbers 23:16

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 Yahweh spoken?”Select Numbers 23:17

18He took up his parable, and said, “Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, you son of Zippor.Select Numbers 23:18

19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor the son of man, that he should repent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not make it good?Select Numbers 23:19

20Behold, I have received a command to bless. He has blessed, and I can’t reverse it.Select Numbers 23:20

21He has not seen iniquity in Jacob. Neither has he seen perverseness in Israel. Yahweh his God is with him. The shout of a king is among them.Select Numbers 23:21

22God brings them out of Egypt. He has as it were the strength of the wild ox.Select Numbers 23:22

23Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; Neither is there any divination with Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What has God done!’Select Numbers 23:23

24Behold, the people rises up as a lioness. As a lion he lifts himself up. He shall not lie down until he eats of the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”Select Numbers 23:24

25Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.”Select Numbers 23:25

26But Balaam answered Balak, “Didn’t I tell you, saying, ‘All that Yahweh speaks, that I must do?’”Select Numbers 23:26

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.”Select Numbers 23:27

28Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that looks down on the desert.Select Numbers 23:28

29Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”Select Numbers 23:29

30Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.Select Numbers 23:30