New Revised Standard Version
The angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me.

Contemporary English Version
The angel said, "You had no right to treat your donkey like that! I was the one who blocked your way, because I don't think you should go to Moab.

New American Bible
But the angel of the LORD said to him: “Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come as an adversary because this rash journey of yours is against my will.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And the angel said to him: Why beatest thou thy ass these three times? I am come to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse, and contrary to me:

And the angel said to him: Why beatest thou thy ass these three times? I am come to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse, and contrary to me:

wherefore

Numbers 22:28 And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said: What have I done to thee? Why strikest thou me, lo, now this third time?

Deuteronomy 25:4 Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out thy corn on the floor.

Psalm 36:6 Thy justice is as the mountains of God, thy judgments are a great deep. Men and beasts thou wilt preserve, O Lord:

Psalm 145:9 The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.

Psalm 147:9 Who giveth to beasts their food: and to the young ravens that call upon him.

Jonah 4:11 And the Lord said: Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made it to grow, which in one night came up, and in one night perished.

withstand thee.

Numbers 22:22 And God was angry. And an angel of the Lord stood in the way against Balaam, who sat on the ass, and had two servants with him.

thy ways

Deuteronomy 23:4 Because they would not meet you with bread and water in the way, when you came out of Egypt: and because they hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor, from Mesopotamia in Syria, to curse thee.

Proverbs 28:6 Better is the poor man walking in his simplicity, than the rich in crooked ways.

Micah 6:5 O my people, remember, I pray thee, what Balach, the king of Moab, purposed: and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him, from Setim to Galgal, that thou mightest know the justice of the Lord.

Acts 13:10 Said: O full of all guile and of all deceit, child of the devil, enemy of all justice, thou ceases not to pervert the right ways of the Lord.

2 Peter 2:14,15 Having eyes full of adultery and of sin that ceaseth not: alluring unstable souls: having their heart exercised with covetousness: children of malediction. . . .

before me

Numbers 22:20,22,35 God therefore came to Balaam in the night, and said to him: If these men be come to call thee, arise and go with them: yet so, that thou do what I shall command thee. . . .

Exodus 3:2-6 And the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he saw that the bush was on fire, and was not burnt. . . .

Proverbs 14:2 He that walketh in the right way, and feareth God, is despised by him that goeth by an infamous way.

Proverbs 28:18 He that walketh uprightly, shall be saved: he that is perverse in his ways, shall fall at once.