And Balaam said to Balak, “Build me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
And Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.
And Balaam said to Balak, “Station yourself by your burnt offering, and let me go. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet me; and whatever he shows me, I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.
And God met Balaam; and he said to him, “The seven altars I have arranged, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.”
And the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
And he returned to him — and look, he was standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab.
And he lifted up his oracle and said: “From Aram Balak has led me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the east: ‘Come, curse Jacob for me; and come, denounce Israel.’
How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?
For from the top of the rocks I see him, and from the hills I behold him: look — a people dwelling alone, not counting itself among the nations.
Who has counted the dust of Jacob, or numbered the fourth part of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!”
And Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? To curse my enemies I took you — and look, you have blessed them altogether.”
And he answered and said, “Must I not keep to speaking what the LORD puts in my mouth?”
Balaam’s Second Oracle
And Balak said to him, “Come with me, please, to another place from which you may see them — you will see only their edge, and all of them you will not see — and curse them for me from there.”
And he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah; and he built seven altars, and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.
And he said to Balak, “Station yourself here by your burnt offering, while I meet him over there.”
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
And he came to him — and look, he was standing by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the LORD spoken?”
And he lifted up his oracle and said: “Rise, Balak, and hear; give ear to me, son of Zippor:
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should relent. Has he said, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not make it stand?
Look — I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot turn it back.
He has beheld no trouble in Jacob, and has seen no misery in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.
God brings them out of Egypt; he is for them like the horns of the wild ox.
For there is no augury against Jacob, and no divination against Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel: ‘What has God worked!’
Look — a people rises up like a lioness, and lifts itself like a lion. It shall not lie down until it eats the prey, and drinks the blood of the slain.”
And Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all!”
And Balaam answered and said to Balak, “Did I not speak to you, saying: All that the LORD speaks — that I will do?”
And Balak said to Balaam, “Come, please — let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will be right in the eyes of God that you curse them for me from there.”
And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which looks down on the face of the wasteland.
And Balaam said to Balak, “Build me here seven altars, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.
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