Numbers 23:1-10

The Voice

23 Balaam (to Balak): This is what I need from you. Build seven altars here, and then get seven bulls and seven rams ready to sacrifice.

²Balak did just as Balaam had asked him to do. Then together they offered a bull and a ram on each of the seven altars.

Balaam (to Balak): ³You stay here, close to these burnt offerings. I’m going to go a little ways away, in case the Eternal wants to meet just with me. Whatever He lets me know, I’ll be sure to pass on to you.

So Balaam went over to an exposed area on the heights, ⁴and God met Balaam there.

Balaam (to the Lord): I made seven altars and set an offering of a bull and a ram on each one.

Eternal One (giving Balaam the right words to say): ⁵Go back to Balak and recite what I’ve told you.

⁶So Balaam walked back down and over to where Balak stood waiting next to the burnt offerings, along with the officials of Moab. ⁷Balaam recited His words.

Balaam: The king of Moab got me to come here, all the way from my home in Aram.
        Balak summoned me from the eastern mountains.
    “Come, curse Jacob for me!”
        “Come, denounce Israel!”
⁸    But I ask you, how can I curse any whom God has not cursed
        or denounce whomever the Eternal has not denounced?
⁹    Here on the heights, from the rocky places where I stand,
        I can see them; from these hills I observe them below.
    And what do I see but a unique and solitary people
        who do not have a place among the nations.
¹⁰    Who can count the dust of Jacob
        or even a fourth of their number?
    It’s impossible to count even one quarter of Israel.
        Let me die as one who has done what is right.
    Let my end be like his!