Numbers 23:1–10

Balaam’s First Message

23Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams^e for me.” ²Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.^f

³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me.^g Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.

⁴God met with him,^h and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”

⁵The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouthⁱ and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”^j

⁶So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the Moabite officials.^{k 7}Then Balaam^l spoke his message:^m

“Balak brought me from Aram,ⁿ

the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.^o

‘Come,’ he said, ‘curse Jacob for me;

come, denounce Israel.’^p

⁸How can I curse

those whom God has not cursed?^q

How can I denounce

those whom the Lord has not denounced?^r

⁹From the rocky peaks I see them,

from the heights I view them.^s

I see a people who live apart

and do not consider themselves one of the nations.^t

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob^u

or number even a fourth of Israel?

Let me die the death of the righteous,^v

and may my final end be like theirs!^w”