Numbers 23:1–10

¹23Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and then prepare seven bulls and seven rams.”

²Balak did it. Then Balaam and Balak sacrificed a bull and a ram on each of the altars.

³Balaam instructed Balak: “Stand watch here beside your Whole-Burnt-Offering while I go off by myself. Maybe God will come and meet with me. Whatever he shows or tells me, I’ll report to you.” Then he went off by himself.

⁴God did meet with Balaam. Balaam said, “I’ve set up seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.”

⁵Then God gave Balaam a message: “Return to Balak and give him this message.”

^6–10He went back and found him stationed beside his Whole-Burnt-Offering and with him all the nobles of Moab. Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle:

Balak led me here from Aram,

the king of Moab all the way from the eastern mountains.

“Go, curse Jacob for me;

go, damn Israel.”

How can I curse whom God has not cursed?

How can I damn whom God has not damned?

From rock pinnacles I see them,

from hilltops I survey them:

Look! a people camping off by themselves,

thinking themselves outsiders among nations.

But who could ever count the dust of Jacob

or take a census of cloud-of-dust Israel?

I want to die like these right-living people!

I want an end just like theirs!