Numbers 23:1–10

BALAAM’S ORACLES

23Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”^{a 2}So Balak did as Balaam directed, and they offered a bull and a ram on each altar. ³Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here by your burnt offering while I am gone. Maybe the Lord will meet with me. I will tell you whatever he reveals to me.” So he went to a barren hill.

⁴God met with him and Balaam said to him, “I have arranged seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.” ⁵Then the Lord put a message in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak and say what I tell you.”

⁶So he returned to Balak, who was standing there by his burnt offering with all the officials of Moab.

BALAAM’S FIRST ORACLE

⁷Balaam proclaimed his poem:

Balak brought me from Aram;^b

the king of Moab, from the eastern mountains:

“Come, put a curse on Jacob for me;

come, denounce Israel!”^c

⁸How can I curse someone God has not cursed?

How can I denounce someone the Lord has not denounced?

⁹I see them from the top of rocky cliffs,

and I watch them from the hills.

There is a people living alone;^d

it does not consider itself among the nations.

¹⁰Who has counted the dust of Jacob^e

or numbered even one-fourth of Israel?

Let me die the death of the upright;

let the end of my life be like theirs.