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23:1  Then Balaam said to Balak, ‘Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.’
23:2  Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
23:3  Then Balaam said to Balak, ‘Stay here beside your burnt-offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.’ And he went to a bare height.
23:4  Then God met Balaam; and Balaam said to him, ‘I have arranged the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.’
23:5  The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, ‘Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.’
23:6  So he returned to Balak, who was standing beside his burnt-offerings with all the officials of Moab.
23:7  Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying: ‘Balak has brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains: “Come, curse Jacob for me; Come, denounce Israel!”
23:8  How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
23:9  For from the top of the crags I see him, from the hills I behold him. Here is a people living alone, and not reckoning itself among the nations!
23:10  Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the dust-cloud of Israel? Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!’
23:11  Then Balak said to Balaam, ‘What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.’
23:12  He answered, ‘Must I not take care to say what the Lord puts into my mouth?’
23:13  So Balak said to him, ‘Come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only part of them, and shall not see them all; then curse them for me from there.’
23:14  So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah. He built seven altars, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
23:15  Balaam said to Balak, ‘Stand here beside your burnt-offerings, while I meet the Lord over there.’
23:16  The Lord met Balaam, put a word into his mouth, and said, ‘Return to Balak, and this is what you shall say.’
23:17  When he came to him, he was standing beside his burnt-offerings with the officials of Moab. Balak said to him, ‘What has the Lord said?’
23:18  Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying: ‘Rise, Balak, and hear; listen to me, O son of Zippor:
23:19  God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?
23:20  See, I received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.
23:21  He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob; nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The Lord their God is with them, acclaimed as a king among them.
23:22  God, who brings them out of Egypt, is like the horns of a wild ox for them.
23:23  Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel; now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, “See what God has done!”
23:24  Look, a people rising up like a lioness, and rousing itself like a lion! It does not lie down until it has eaten the prey and drunk the blood of the slain.’
23:25  Then Balak said to Balaam, ‘Do not curse them at all, and do not bless them at all.’
23:26  But Balaam answered Balak, ‘Did I not tell you, “Whatever the Lord says, that is what I must do”?’
23:27  So Balak said to Balaam, ‘Come now, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there.’
23:28  So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the waste-land.
23:29  Balaam said to Balak, ‘Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.’
23:30  So Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.