Numbers 23:1-10

Balaam Blesses Israel

23:1 Balaam said to Balak, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” 23:2 So Balak did just as Balaam had said. Balak and Balaam then offered on each altar a bull and a ram. 23:3 Balaam said to Balak, “Station yourself by your burnt offering, and I will go off; perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went to a deserted height.

23:4 Then God met Balaam, who said to him, “I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.” 23:5 Then the Lord put a message in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and speak what I tell you.”

23:6 So he returned to him, and he was still standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab. 23:7 Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying,

“Balak, the king of Moab, brought me from Aram,

out of the mountains of the east, saying,

‘Come, pronounce a curse on Jacob for me;

come, denounce Israel.’

23:8 How can I curse one whom God has not cursed,

or how can I denounce one whom the Lord has not denounced?

23:9 For from the top of the rocks I see them;

from the hills I watch them.

Indeed, a nation that lives alone,

and it will not be reckoned among the nations.

23:10 Who can count the dust of Jacob,

Or number the fourth part of Israel?

Let me die the death of the upright,

and let the end of my life be like theirs.”