1 - Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me."
2 - Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
3 - Then Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you." Then he went off to a barren height.
4 - God met with him, and Balaam said, "I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram."
5 - The Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, "Go back to Balak and give him this word."
6 - So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the Moabite officials.
7 - Then Balaam spoke his message: "Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. 'Come,' he said, 'curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.'
8 - How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
9 - From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
10 - Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my final end be like theirs!"
11 - Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!"
12 - He answered, "Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?"
13 - Then Balak said to him, "Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will not see them all but only the outskirts of their camp. And from there, curse them for me."
14 - So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
15 - Balaam said to Balak, "Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there."
16 - The Lord met with Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, "Go back to Balak and give him this word."
17 - So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the Moabite officials. Balak asked him, "What did the Lord say?"
18 - Then he spoke his message: "Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.
19 - God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
20 - I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
21 - "No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed
22 - God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.
23 - There is no divination against
24 - The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest till it devours its prey and drinks the blood of its victims."
25 - Then Balak said to Balaam, "Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!"
26 - Balaam answered, "Did I not tell you I must do whatever the Lord says?"
27 - Then Balak said to Balaam, "Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there."
28 - And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.
29 - Balaam said, "Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me."
30 - Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.