Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you that you have beaten me these three times?”

Balaam said to Balak, “Station yourself ¹  by your burnt offering, and I will go off; perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever he reveals to me ²  I will tell you.” ³  Then he went to a deserted height. ⁴ 

Then the Lord met Balaam and put a message ¹  in his mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and speak what I tell you.”

When Balaam ¹  came to him, he was still standing by his burnt offering, along with the princes of Moab. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?”

He ¹  has not looked on iniquity in Jacob, ²  nor has he seen trouble ³  in Israel. The Lord their God is with them; his acclamation ⁴  as king is among them.

But Balaam replied ¹  to Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘All that the Lord speaks, ²  I must do’?”

¹ After the plague the Lord said to Moses and to Eleazar son of Aaron the priest, ² 

“Number the people ¹  from twenty years old and upward, just as the Lord commanded Moses and the Israelites who went out from the land of Egypt.”

¹ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go up this mountain of the Abarim range, ²  and see ³  the land I have given ⁴  to the Israelites.

The Lord replied ¹  to Moses, “Take Joshua son of Nun, a man in whom is such a spirit, ²  and lay your hand on him; ³ 

So Moses did as the Lord commanded him; he took Joshua and set ¹  him before Eleazar the priest and before the whole community.

(30:1) ¹  So Moses told the Israelites everything, just as the Lord had commanded him. ² 

¹ Moses told the leaders ²  of the tribes concerning the Israelites, “This is what ³  the Lord has commanded:

These are the statutes that the Lord commanded Moses, relating to ¹  a man and his wife, and a father and his young daughter who is still living in her father’s house.

So Moses spoke to the people: “Arm ¹  men from among you for the war, to attack the Midianites and to execute ²  the Lord’s vengeance on Midian.

Look, these people through the counsel of Balaam caused the Israelites to act treacherously against the Lord in the matter of Peor – which resulted in the plague among the community of the Lord!

Then Eleazar the priest said to the men of war who had gone into the battle, “This is the ordinance of the law that the Lord commanded Moses:

Why do you frustrate the intent ¹  of the Israelites to cross over into the land which the Lord has given them?

Now look, you are standing in your fathers’ place, a brood of sinners, to increase still further the fierce wrath of the Lord against the Israelites.

Then Moses replied, ¹  “If you will do this thing, and if you will arm yourselves for battle before the Lord,