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Numbers 23

    ²And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they laid together a calf and a ram upon every altar.

    ³And Balaam said to Balac: Stand a while by thy burnt offering, until I go, to see if perhaps the Lord will meet me, and whatsoever he shall command, I will speak to thee.

    ⁴And when he was gone with speed, God met him. And Balaam speaking to him, said: I have erected seven altars, and have laid on everyone a calf and a ram.

    ⁵And the Lord put the word in his mouth, and said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou speak.

    ⁶Returning he found Balac standing by his burnt offering, with all the princes of the Moabites:

    ⁷And taking up his parable, he said: Balac king of the Moabites hath brought me from Aram, from the mountains of the east: Come, said he, and curse Jacob: make haste and detest Israel.

    ⁸How shall I curse him, whom God hath not cursed? By what means should I detest him, whom the Lord detesteth not?

    ⁹I shall see him from the tops of the rocks, and shall consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

    ¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob, and know the number of the stock of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them.

    ¹¹And Balac said to Balaam: What is this that thou dost? I sent for thee to curse my enemies: and thou contrariwise blessest them.

    ¹²He answered him: Call I speak any thing else but what the Lord commandeth?

    ¹³Balac therefore said: Come with me to another place from whence thou mayest see part of Israel, and canst not see them all: curse them from thence.

    ¹⁴And when he had brought him to a high place, upon the top of mount Phasga, Balaam built seven altars, and laying on every one a calf and a ram,

    ¹⁵He said to Balac: Stand here by thy burnt offering while I go to meet him.

    ¹⁶And when the Lord had met him, and had put the word in his mouth, he said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou say to him.

    ¹⁷Returning he found him standing by his burnt sacrifice, and the princes of the Moabites with him. And Balac said to him: What hath the Lord spoken?

    ¹⁸But he taking up his parable, said: Stand, O Balac, and give ear: hear, thou son of Sephor:

    ¹⁹God is not a man, that he should lie, nor as the son of man, that he should be changed. Hath he said then, and will he not do? hath he spoken, and will he not fulfil?

    ²⁰I was brought to bless, the blessing I am not able to hinder.

    ²¹There is no idol in Jacob, neither is there an image god to be seen in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the victory of the king in him.

    ²²God hath brought him out of Egypt, whose strength is like to the rhinoceros.

    ²³There is no soothsaying in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. In their times it shall be told to Jacob and to Israel what God hath wrought.

    ²⁴Behold the people shall rise up as a lioness, and shall lift itself up as a lion: it shall not lie down till it devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

    ²⁵And Balac said to Balaam: Neither curse, nor bless him.

    ²⁶And he said: Did I not tell thee, that whatsoever God should command me, that I would do?

    ²⁷And Balac said to him: Come and I will bring thee to another place; if peradventure it please God that thou mayest curse them from thence.

    ²⁸And when he had brought him upon the top of mount Phogor, which looketh towards the wilderness,

    ²⁹Balaam said to him: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and the same number of rams.

    ³⁰Balac did as Balaam had said: and he laid on every altar, a calf and a ram.

Numbers 24

    ²And lifting up his eyes, he saw Israel abiding in their tents by their tribes: and the spirit of God rushing upon him,

    ³He took up his parable and said: Balaam the son of Beor hath said: The man hath said, whose eye ire stopped up:

    ⁴The hearer of the words of God hath said, he that hath beheld the vision of the Almighty, he that falleth, and so his eyes are opened:

    ⁵How beautiful are thy tabernacles, O Jacob, and thy tents, O Israel!

    ⁶As woody valleys, as watered gardens near the rivers, as tabernacles which the Lord hath pitched, as cedars by the waterside.

    ⁷Water shall flow out of his bucket, and his seed shall be in many waters. For Agag his king shall be removed, and his kingdom shall be taken awry.

    ⁸God hath brought him out of Egypt, whose strength is like to the rhinoceros. They shall devour the nations that are his enemies, and break their bones, and pierce them with arrows.

    ⁹Lying down he hath slept as a lion, and as a lioness, whom none shall dare to rouse. He that blesseth thee, shall also himself be blessed: he that curseth thee shall be reckoned accursed.

    ¹⁰And Balac being angry against Balaam, clapped his hands together and said: I called thee to curse my enemies, and thou on the contrary hast blessed them three times.

    ¹¹Return to thy place. I had determined indeed greatly to honour thee, but the Lord hath deprived thee of the honour designed for thee.

    ¹²Balaam made answer to Balac: Did I not say to thy messengers, whom thou sentest to me:

    ¹³If Balac would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to utter any thing of my own head either good or evil: but whatsoever the Lord shall say, that I will speak?

    ¹⁴But yet going to my people, I will give thee counsel, what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days.

    ¹⁵Therefore taking up his parable, again he said: Balaam the son of Beor hath said: The man whose eye is stopped up, hath said:

    ¹⁶The hearer of the words of God hath said, who knoweth the doctrine of the Highest, and seeth the visions of the Almighty, who falling hath his eyes opened:

    ¹⁷I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not near. A STAR SHALL RISE out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel: and shall strike the chiefs of Moab, and shall waste all the children of Seth.

    ¹⁸And he shall possess Idumea: the inheritance of Seir shall come to their enemies, but Israel shall do manfully

    ¹⁹Out of Jacob shall he come that shall rule, and shall destroy the remains of the city.

    ²⁰And when he saw Amalec, he took up his parable, and said: Amalec the beginning of nations, whose latter ends shall be destroyed.

    ²¹He saw also the Cinite: and took up his parable, and said: Thy habitation in- deed is strong: but though thou build thy nest in a rock,

    ²²And thou be chosen of the stock of Cin, how long shalt thou be able to continue? For Assur shall take thee captive.

    ²³And taking up his parable, again he said: Alas, who shall live when God shall do these things?

    ²⁴They shall come in galleys from Italy, they shall overcome the Assyrians, and shall waste the Hebrews, and at the last they themselves also shall perish.

    ²⁵And Balaam rose, and returned to his place: Balac also returned the way that he came.

Numbers 25

    ²Who called them to their sacrifices. And they ate of them, and adored their gods.

    ³And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor: upon which the Lord being angry,

    ⁴Said to Moses: Take all the princes of the people, and hang them up on gibbets against the sun: that my fury may be turned away from Israel.

    ⁵And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Let every man kill his neighbours, that have been initiated to Beelphegor.

    ⁶And behold one of the children of Israel went in before his brethren to a harlot of Madian, in the sight of Moses, and of all the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle.

    ⁷And when Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose up from the midst; of the multitude, and taking a dagger,

    ⁸Went in after the Israelite into the brothel house, and thrust both of them through together, to wit, the man and the woman in the genital parts. And the scourge ceased from the children of Israel:

    ⁹And there were slain four and twenty thousand men.

    ¹⁰And the Lord said to Moses:

    ¹¹Phinees the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel: because he was moved with my zeal against them, that I myself might not destroy the children of Israel in my zeal.

    ¹²Therefore say to him: Behold I give him the peace of my covenant,

    ¹³And the covenant of the priesthood for ever shall be both to him and his seed, because he hath been zealous for his God, and hath made atonement for the wickedness of the children of Israel.

    ¹⁴And the name of the Israelite, was slain with the woman of Madian, was Zambri the son of Salu, a prince the kindred and tribe of Simeon.

    ¹⁵And the Madianite woman, that was slain with him, was called Cozbi the daughter of Sur, a most noble prince among the Madianites.

    ¹⁶And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying:

    ¹⁷Let the Madianites find you enemies, and slay you them:

    ¹⁸Because they also have acted like enemies against you, and have guilefully deceived you by the idol Phogor, and Cozbi their sister, a daughter of a prince of Madian, who was slain in the day the plague for the sacrilege of Phogor.

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¹⁴And calling again the multitude unto him, he said to them: Hear ye me all, and understand.

    ¹⁵There is nothing from without a man that entering into him, can defile him. But the things which come from a man, those are they that defile a man.

    ¹⁶If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

    ¹⁷And when he was come into the house from the multitude, his disciples asked him the parable.

    ¹⁸And he saith to them: So are you also without knowledge? understand you not that every thing from without, entering into a man cannot defile him:

    ¹⁹Because it entereth not into his heart, but goeth into the belly, and goeth out into the privy, purging all meats?

    ²⁰But he said that the things which come out from a man, they defile a man.

    ²¹For from within out of the heart of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

    ²²Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.

    ²³All these evil things come from within, and defile a man.

    ²⁴And rising from thence he went into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon: and entering into a house, he would that no man should know it, and he could not be hid.

    ²⁵For a woman as soon as she heard of him, whose daughter had an unclean spirit, came in and fell down at his feet.

    ²⁶For the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophenician born. And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

    ²⁷Who said to her: Suffer first the children to be filled: for it is not good to take the bread of the children, and cast it to the dogs.

    ²⁸But she answered and said to him: Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat under the table of the crumbs of the children.

    ²⁹And he said to her: For this saying go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daughter.

    ³⁰And when she was come into her house, she found the girl lying upon the bed, and that the devil was gone out.

    ³¹And again going out of the coasts of Tyre, he came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis.

    ³²And they bring to him one deaf and dumb; and they besought him that he would lay his hand upon him.

    ³³And taking him from the multitude apart, he put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, he touched his tongue:

    ³⁴And looking up to heaven, he groaned, and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, Be thou opened.

    ³⁵And immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right.

    ³⁶And he charged them that they should tell no man. But the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal did they publish it.

    ³⁷And so much the more did they wonder, saying: He hath done all things well; he hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.