1. And Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me seven altars, and prepare for me seven oxen 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, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” And he went to a high place.
4. God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered on every altar a bull and a ram.”
5. The Lord put a word in the mouth of Balaam and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you will speak.”
6. So he returned to Balak, who was standing by his burnt offering with all the princes of Moab.
7. Then Balaam uttered his oracle, saying: “Balak has brought me from Aram,the king of Moab from the mountains of the east,saying, ‘Come, curse Jacob for me,and come, defy Israel!’
8. How will I cursewhom God has not cursed?Or how will I defywhom the Lord has not defied?
9. For from the top of the rocks I see him,and from the hills I behold him;there, the people will dwell aloneand will not be counted among the nations.
10. Who can count the dust of Jacoband the number of the fourth part of Israel?Let me die the death of the righteous,and let my last end be like his!”