Numbers 23:1–10

²³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”^{* 2}Balak did as Balaam had said and offered^h a bull and a ram on each altar.^{* 3}Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your burnt offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a bare height.^*

⁴Then God met Balaam, and Balaamⁱ said to him, “I have arranged the seven altars and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.”^{* 5}The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.”^{* 6}So he returned to Balak,^j who was standing beside his burnt offerings with all the officials of Moab. ⁷Then Balaam^k uttered his oracle, saying,

“Balak has brought me from Aram,

the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:

‘Come, curse Jacob for me.

Come, denounce Israel!’^*

⁸How can I curse whom God has not cursed?

How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?^*

⁹For from the top of the crags I see him;

from the hills I behold him.

Here is a people living alone

and not reckoning itself among the nations!^*

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob

or number the dust cloud^l of Israel?

Let me die the death of the upright,

and let my end be like his!”^*