1Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
2And Balak did as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.
3Then Balaam said to Balak, “Station yourself beside your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me, and whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a barren height.
4And God met Balaam, and he said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.”
5And Yahweh put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
6So he returned to him, and there he was, standing beside his burnt offering, he and all the officials of Moab.
7Then he took up his oracle and said: “From Aram Balak leads me, the king of Moab, from the mountains of the east: ‘Come, curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.’”
8How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce whom Yahweh has not denounced?
9For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him. Look, a people dwells alone, and does not reckon itself among the nations.
10Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his.
11Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have altogether blessed them!”
12And he answered and said, “Must I not take care to speak whatever Yahweh puts in my mouth?”
13Then Balak said to him, “Come now with me to another place from which you can see them—you will see only the edge of them, and you will not see all of them—and curse them for me from there.”
14So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and he built seven altars and offered up a bull and a ram on the altar.
15And he said to Balak, “Station yourself here beside your burnt offering, while I meet him over there.”
16And Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
17So he came to him, and there he was, standing beside his burnt offering, and the officials of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, “What has Yahweh spoken?”
18Then he took up his oracle and said: “Rise, Balak, and hear; give ear to me, son of Zippor.
19God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?
20Behold, to bless I have received; he has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.
21He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. Yahweh his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.
22God who brought them out of Egypt is like the horns of a wild ox for him.
23For there is no omen against Jacob, nor divination against Israel. At the proper time it will be said to Jacob and to Israel what God has done.
24Look, a people rises up like a lioness, and lifts itself up like a lion; it does not lie down until it devours the prey and drinks the blood of the slain.
25Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all!”
26But Balaam answered and said to Balak, “Did I not tell you, saying, ‘All that Yahweh speaks, that I must do’?”
27Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come now, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will be right in the eyes of God that you curse them for me from there.”
28So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the wasteland.
29And Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
30And Balak did as Balaam had said, and he offered up a bull and a ram on the altar.
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