1. Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and here prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”
2. So Balak did as Balaam had ordered, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
3. Balaam said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering while I go over there. Perhaps the Lord will meet me, and then I will tell you whatever he lets me see.” And so he went out on the barren height.
4. Then God met Balaam, and Balak said to him: “I have erected the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.”
5. The Lord put an utterance in Balaam’s mouth, and said: Go back to Balak, and speak accordingly.
6. So he went back to Balak, who was still standing by his burnt offering together with all the princes of Moab.
7. Then Balaam recited his poem:From Aram Balak has led me here,Moab’s king, from the mountains of Qedem:“Come, curse for me Jacob,come, denounce Israel.”
8. How can I lay a curse on the one whom God has not cursed?How denounce the one whom the Lord has not denounced?
9. For from the top of the crags I see him,from the heights I behold him.Here is a people that lives apartand does not reckon itself among the nations.
10. Who has ever counted the dust of Jacob,who numbered Israel’s dust-cloud?May I die the death of the just,may my end be like theirs!
11. “What have you done to me?” cried Balak to Balaam. “It was to lay a curse on my foes that I brought you here; but instead, you have blessed them!”