³⁰ “But I am the same donkey you have ridden all your life,” the donkey answered. “Have I ever done anything like this before?”

“No,” Balaam admitted.

¹⁶ But Balaam was stopped from his mad course when his donkey rebuked him with a human voice.

²⁷ Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. ²⁸ God chose things despised by the world,^[a] things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.