Numbers 23:1-8 ▼

1 Balaam said to Balak, |Build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bulls and seven rams.|

2 Balak did as Balaam had spoken; and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar a bull and a ram.

3 Balaam said to Balak, |Station yourself by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps God will come to meet me, and whatever he shows me I will tell you.| And Balak went off and stationed himself by his offering, and Balaam called to God and went off to a barren height.

4 And God met Balaam, and he said to him, |I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.|

5 And God put a word in Balaam's mouth, and said, |Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.|

6 He returned to him, and look, he was standing by his burnt offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.

7 He took up his parable, and said, |From Aram has Balak brought me, the king of Moab from the mountains of the East. 'Come, curse Jacob for me. Come, defy Israel.'

8 How shall I curse whom the LORD has not cursed? How shall I defy whom God has not defied?