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Numbers 23

Balaam's First Oracle

    ² Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

    ³ Then Balaam said to Balak, Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you. Then he went off to a barren height.

    ⁴ God met with him, and Balaam said, I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.

    ⁵ The LORD put a message in Balaam's mouth and said, Go back to Balak and give him this message.

    ⁶ So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the princes of Moab.

    ⁷ Then Balaam uttered his oracle:

   Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.'Come,' he said, 'curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.'

    ⁸ How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the LORD has not denounced?

    ⁹ From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.

    ¹⁰ Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!

 ¹¹Balak said to Balaam, What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!

    ¹² He answered, Must I not speak what the LORD puts in my mouth?

Balaam's Second Oracle

    ¹⁴ So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

    ¹⁵ Balaam said to Balak, Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.

    ¹⁶ The LORD met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth and said, Go back to Balak and give him this message.

    ¹⁷ So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the princes of Moab. Balak asked him, What did the LORD say?

    ¹⁸ Then he uttered his oracle:

   Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.

    ¹⁹ God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfil?

    ²⁰ I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.

 ²¹No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.

    ²² God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.

    ²³ There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done!'

    ²⁴ The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest till he devours his prey and drinks the blood of his victims.

 ²⁵Then Balak said to Balaam, Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!

    ²⁶ Balaam answered, Did I not tell you I must do whatever the LORD says?

Balaam's Third Oracle

    ²⁸ And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.

    ²⁹ Balaam said, Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.

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

Numbers 24

    ² When Balaam looked out and saw Israel encamped tribe by tribe, the Spirit of God came upon him

    ³ and he uttered his oracle:

   The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,

    ⁴ the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:

 ⁵How beautiful are your tents, O Jacob, your dwelling-places, O Israel!

 ⁶Like valleys they spread out, like gardens beside a river, like aloes planted by the LORD, like cedars beside the waters.

    ⁷ Water will flow from their buckets; their seed will have abundant water.

   Their king will be greater than Agag; their kingdom will be exalted.

 ⁸God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox. They devour hostile nations and break their bones in pieces; with their arrows they pierce them.

    ⁹ Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness— who dares to rouse them?

   May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed!

 ¹⁰Then Balak's anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands together and said to him, I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times.

    ¹¹ Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the LORD has kept you from being rewarded.

    ¹² Balaam answered Balak, Did I not tell the messengers you sent me,

    ¹³ 'Even if Balak gave me his palace filled with silver and gold, I could not do anything of my own accord, good or bad, to go beyond the command of the LORD— and I must say only what the LORD says'?

    ¹⁴ Now I am going back to my people, but come, let me warn you of what this people will do to your people in days to come.

Balaam's Fourth Oracle

   The oracle of Balaam son of Beor, the oracle of one whose eye sees clearly,

    ¹⁶ the oracle of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened:

 ¹⁷I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a sceptre will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth.

    ¹⁸ Edom will be conquered; Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong.

    ¹⁹ A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city.

Balaam's Final Oracles

   Amalek was first among the nations, but he will come to ruin at last.

 ²¹Then he saw the Kenites and uttered his oracle:

   Your dwelling-place is secure, your nest is set in a rock;

    ²² yet you Kenites will be destroyed when Asshur takes you captive.

 ²³Then he uttered his oracle:

   Ah, who can live when God does this?

    ²⁴ Ships will come from the shores of Kittim; they will subdue Asshur and Eber, but they too will come to ruin.

 ²⁵Then Balaam got up and returned home and Balak went his own way.

Numbers 25

Moab Seduces Israel

    ² who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods.

    ³ So Israel joined in worshipping the Baal of Peor. And the LORD's anger burned against them.

    ⁴ The LORD said to Moses, Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD's fierce anger may turn away from Israel.

    ⁵ So Moses said to Israel's judges, Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshipping the Baal of Peor.

    ⁶ Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

    ⁷ When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand

    ⁸ and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of them— through the Israelite and into the woman's body. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped;

    ⁹ but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.

    ¹⁰ The LORD said to Moses,

    ¹¹ Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honour among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them.

    ¹² Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him.

    ¹³ He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honour of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.

    ¹⁴ The name of the Israelite who was killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family.

    ¹⁵ And the name of the Midianite woman who was put to death was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

    ¹⁶ The LORD said to Moses,

    ¹⁷ Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them,

    ¹⁸ because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.

View commentary related to this passage

¹⁴ Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

    ^15-16
   Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean'.

    ¹⁷ After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.

    ¹⁸ Are you so dull? he asked. Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'?

    ¹⁹ For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body. (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

    ²⁰ He went on: What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean'.

    ²¹ For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

    ²² greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

    ²³ All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'.

The Faith of a Syro-Phoenician Woman

    ²⁵ In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet.

    ²⁶ The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

    ²⁷ First let the children eat all they want, he told her, for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs.

    ²⁸ Yes, Lord, she replied, but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

    ²⁹ Then he told her, For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.

    ³⁰ She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

The Healing of a Deaf and Mute Man

    ³² There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.

    ³³ After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spat and touched the man's tongue.

    ³⁴ He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, Ephphatha! (which means, Be opened!).

    ³⁵ At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.

    ³⁶ Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.

    ³⁷ People were overwhelmed with amazement. He has done everything well, they said. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.