Numbers 23:1-10

New American Standard Bible

The Prophecies of Balaam

23 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.” ²Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. ³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a bare hill.

⁴Now God met with Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have set up the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.” ⁵Then the Lord ^(A)put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you shall speak.” ⁶So he returned to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, he and all the leaders of Moab. ⁷And he took up his discourse and said,

“From ^(B)Aram Balak has brought me,
Moab’s king from the mountains of the East, saying,
‘^(C)Come, declare Jacob cursed for me,
And come, curse Israel!’
⁸^(D)How am I to put a curse on him upon whom God has not put a curse?
And how am I to curse him whom the Lord has not cursed?
⁹For I see him from the top of the rocks,
And I look at him from the hills;
^(E)Behold, a people that lives in isolation,
And does not consider itself to be among the nations.
¹⁰^(F)Who has counted the dust of Jacob,
Or the number of the fourth part of Israel?
^(G)May ^[a]I die the death of the upright,
^(H)And may my end be like his!”