15. Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”
16. The Lord met with Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”
17. So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the Moabite officials. Balak asked him, “What did the Lord say?”
18. Then he spoke his message: “Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.
19. God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
20. I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
21. “No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The Lord their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them.
22. God brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox.
23. There is no divination against Jacob, no evil omens against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘See what God has done!’
24. The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion that does not rest till it devours its prey and drinks the blood of its victims.”
25. Then Balak said to Balaam, “Neither curse them at all nor bless them at all!”
26. Balaam answered, “Did I not tell you I must do whatever the Lord says?”
27. Then Balak said to Balaam, “Come, let me take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God to let you curse them for me from there.”
28. And Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, overlooking the wasteland.
29. Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”
30. Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.