Old/New Testament
Chapter 23
1 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and here prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 2 So Balak did as Balaam had ordered, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 3 Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering while I go over there. Perhaps the Lord will meet me, and then I will tell you whatever he lets me see.” And so he went out on the barren height. 4 Then God met Balaam, and Balak said to him: “I have erected the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” 5 The Lord put an utterance in Balaam’s mouth, and said: Go back to Balak, and speak accordingly. 6 So he went back to Balak, who was still standing by his burnt offering together with all the princes of Moab. 7 Then Balaam recited his poem:
From Aram[a] Balak has led me here,
Moab’s king, from the mountains of Qedem:(A)
“Come, curse for me Jacob,
come, denounce Israel.”
8 How can I lay a curse on the one whom God has not cursed?
How denounce the one whom the Lord has not denounced?
9 For from the top of the crags I see him,
from the heights I behold him.
Here is a people that lives apart[b]
and does not reckon itself among the nations.
10 Who has ever counted the dust of Jacob,
who numbered Israel’s dust-cloud?[c]
May I die the death of the just,
may my end be like theirs!
11 “What have you done to me?” cried Balak to Balaam. “It was to lay a curse on my foes that I brought you here; but instead, you have blessed them!” 12 Balaam replied, “Is it not what the Lord puts in my mouth that I take care to repeat?”
The Second Oracle. 13 Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place[d] from which you can see them; but you will see only some, not all of them, and from there lay a curse on them for me.” 14 So he brought him to a lookout post on the top of Pisgah, where he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each of them. 15 Balaam then said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I seek a meeting over there.” 16 Then the Lord met Balaam, and, having put an utterance in his mouth, said to him: Return to Balak, and speak accordingly. 17 So he went to Balak, who was still standing by his burnt offering together with the princes of Moab. When Balak asked him, “What did the Lord say?” 18 Balaam recited his poem:
Rise, Balak, and listen;
give ear to my testimony, son of Zippor!
19 God is not a human being who speaks falsely,
nor a mortal, who feels regret.
Is God one to speak and not act,
to decree and not bring it to pass?
20 I was summoned to bless;
I will bless; I cannot revoke it!
21 Misfortune I do not see in Jacob,
nor do I see misery[e] in Israel.
The Lord, their God, is with them;
among them is the war-cry of their King.
22 They have the like of a wild ox’s horns:[f]
God who brought them out of Egypt.(B)
23 No, there is no augury against Jacob,
nor divination against Israel.
Now it is said of Jacob,
of Israel, “Look what God has done!”
24 Here is a people that rises up like a lioness,
and gets up like a lion;
It does not rest till it has devoured its prey
and has drunk the blood of the slain.(C)
25 “Neither lay a curse on them nor bless them,” said Balak to Balaam. 26 But Balaam answered Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘Everything the Lord tells me I must do’?”
The Third Oracle. 27 Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me bring you to another place; perhaps God will approve of your laying a curse on them for me from there.” 28 So he took Balaam to the top of Peor, that overlooks Jeshimon. 29 Balaam then said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here; and here prepare for me seven bulls and seven rams.” 30 And Balak did as Balaam had ordered, offering a bull and a ram on each altar.
Chapter 24
1 Balaam, however, perceiving that the Lord was pleased to bless Israel, did not go aside as before to seek omens, but turned his gaze toward the wilderness. 2 When Balaam looked up and saw Israel encamped, tribe by tribe, the spirit of God came upon him, 3 and he recited his poem:
The oracle of Balaam, son of Beor,
the oracle of the man whose eye is true,
4 The oracle of one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows,
Of one who sees what the Almighty sees,
in rapture[g] and with eyes unveiled:
5 How pleasant are your tents, Jacob;
your encampments, Israel!
6 Like palm trees spread out,
like gardens beside a river,
Like aloes the Lord planted,
like cedars beside water;
7 Water will drip from their buckets,
their seed will have plentiful water;
Their king will rise higher than Agag[h]
and their dominion will be exalted.
8 They have the like of a wild ox’s horns:
God who brought them out of Egypt.
They will devour hostile nations,
break their bones, and crush their loins.(D)
9 Crouching, they lie like a lion,
or like a lioness; who will arouse them?
Blessed are those who bless you,
and cursed are those who curse you!(E)
10 In a blaze of anger at Balaam, Balak clapped his hands[i] and said to him, “It was to lay a curse on my foes that I summoned you here; yet three times now you have actually blessed them!(F) 11 Now flee to your home. I promised to reward you richly, but the Lord has withheld the reward from you!” 12 Balaam replied to Balak, “Did I not even tell the messengers whom you sent to me, 13 ‘Even if Balak gave me his house full of silver and gold, I could not of my own accord do anything, good or evil, contrary to the command of the Lord’? Whatever the Lord says I must say.(G)
The Fourth Oracle. 14 “But now that I am about to go to my own people, let me warn you what this people will do to your people in the days to come.” 15 Then he recited his poem:
The oracle of Balaam, son of Beor,
the oracle of the man whose eye is true,
16 The oracle of one who hears what God says,
and knows what the Most High knows,
Of one who sees what the Almighty sees,
in rapture and with eyes unveiled.
17 I see him, though not now;
I observe him, though not near:
A star shall advance from Jacob,
and a scepter[j] shall rise from Israel,
That will crush the brows of Moab,(H)
and the skull of all the Sethites,
18 Edom will be dispossessed,
and no survivor is left in Seir.
Israel will act boldly,
19 and Jacob will rule his foes.
20 Upon seeing Amalek, Balaam recited his poem:
21 Upon seeing the Kenites,[l] he recited his poem:
Though your dwelling is safe,
and your nest is set on a cliff;
22 Yet Kain will be destroyed
when Asshur[m] takes you captive.
23 Upon seeing[n] [the Ishmaelites?] he recited his poem:
Alas, who shall survive of Ishmael,
24 to deliver them from the hands of the Kittim?
When they have conquered Asshur and conquered Eber,
They too shall perish forever.
25 Then Balaam set out on his journey home; and Balak also went his way.
Chapter 25
Worship of Baal of Peor. 1 While Israel was living at Shittim,[o] the people profaned themselves by prostituting themselves with the Moabite women.(J) 2 These then invited the people to the sacrifices of their god, and the people ate of the sacrifices(K) and bowed down to their god. 3 Israel thereby attached itself to the Baal of Peor,(L) and the Lord’s anger flared up against Israel. 4 (M)The Lord said to Moses: Gather all the leaders of the people, and publicly execute them[p] before the Lord, that the blazing wrath of the Lord may turn away from Israel. 5 So Moses told the Israelite judges, “Each of you kill those of his men who have attached themselves to the Baal of Peor.”[q]
Zeal of Phinehas. 6 At this a certain Israelite came and brought in a Midianite woman[r] to his kindred in the view of Moses and of the whole Israelite community, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting. 7 (N)When Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw this, he rose up from the assembly, and taking a spear in his hand, 8 followed the Israelite into the tent where he pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman. Thus the plague upon the Israelites was checked; 9 but the dead from the plague were twenty-four thousand.
10 Then the Lord said to Moses: 11 Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger from the Israelites by his being as jealous among them as I am; that is why I did not put an end to the Israelites in my jealousy.[s] 12 (O)Announce, therefore, that I hereby give him my covenant of peace,[t] 13 which shall be for him and for his descendants after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous on behalf of his God and thus made expiation for the Israelites.
14 [u]The name of the slain Israelite, the one slain with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, son of Salu, prince of a Simeonite ancestral house. 15 The name of the slain Midianite woman was Cozbi, daughter of Zur, who was head of a clan, an ancestral house, in Midian.
Vengeance on the Midianites. 16 [v]The Lord then said to Moses: 17 (P)Treat the Midianites as enemies and strike them, 18 for they have been your enemies by the deceitful dealings they had with you regarding Peor and their kinswoman Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite prince, who was slain at the time of the plague because of Peor.
III. Second Census of a New Generation and Preparation to Enter the Promised Land
Chapter 26
The Second Census. 19 After the plague
14 (A)He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” [16 ][a]
17 [b](B)When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 [c](C)since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. 21 (D)From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23 All these evils come from within and they defile.”
The Syrophoenician Woman’s Faith. 24 (E)From that place he went off to the district of Tyre.[d] He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it, but he could not escape notice. 25 Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.(F) 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.[e] For it is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” 28 She replied and said to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.” 29 Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” 30 When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
The Healing of a Deaf Man. 31 (G)Again he left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, into the district of the Decapolis. 32 And people brought to him a deaf man who had a speech impediment and begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him off by himself away from the crowd. He put his finger into the man’s ears and, spitting, touched his tongue; 34 then he looked up to heaven and groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”) 35 And [immediately] the man’s ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed, and he spoke plainly. 36 [f]He ordered them not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them not to, the more they proclaimed it. 37 They were exceedingly astonished and they said, “He has done all things well. He makes the deaf hear and [the] mute speak.”(H)
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