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

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 Yahweh will come to meet me; and whatever he shows me I will tell you.”

He went to a bare height. 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.”

⁵Yahweh 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,

• “From Aram has Balak brought me,
• the king of Moab from the mountains of the East.

• Come, curse Jacob for me.
• Come, defy Israel.

• ⁸How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?
• How shall I defy whom Yahweh has not defied?

• 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.

• 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!”

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 Yahweh puts in my mouth?”

¹³Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place, where you may see them; you shall see but the utmost part of them, and shall not see them all: and curse me them from there.”

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 over there.”

¹⁶Yahweh 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 Yahweh spoken?”

¹⁸He took up his parable, and said,

• “Rise up, Balak, and hear!
• Listen to me, you son of Zippor.

• 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?

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

• 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.

• ²²God brings them out of Egypt.
• He has as it were the strength of the wild ox.

• 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!

• ²⁴Behold, the people rises up as a lioness,
• As a lion he lifts himself up.

• He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey,
• and drinks the blood of the slain.”

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 Yahweh 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 me them from there.”

²⁸Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, that looks down on the desert. ²⁹Balaam said to Balak, “Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bulls and seven rams.”

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