¹² Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell the messengers you sent me,^{(A) 13} ‘Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything of my own accord, good or bad, to go beyond the command of the Lord^(B)—and I must say only what the Lord says’?^(C)

¹⁵ “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. ¹⁶ “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice^(A) and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident,^(B) so that a plague^(C) struck the Lord’s people.