4. God met with Balaam and he said to Him, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I offered a bull and a ram.”
5. Adonai put a message into Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak and speak this.”
6. Balaam went back to him. Behold, he was standing beside his offering with all the princes of Moab.
7. Then he uttered his oracle and said, “From Aram, Balak brought me, Moab’s king from the mountains of the east: ‘Come! Curse Jacob for me! ‘Come! Denounce Israel!’
8. How can I curse one whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce one whom Adonai has not denounced?
9. From the rocky peaks I see him. From the heights I behold him. Look, he lives as a nation apart, and does not consider himself as being like the other nations.
10. Who can count Jacob’s dust? Who can number a fourth of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!”
11. Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but look, you’ve actually blessed them!”
12. But in response he said, “Mustn’t I speak whatever Adonai puts into my mouth?”
13. Then Balak said to him, “Come now with me to another place where you can see a part of them only, not all of them. Curse them for me from there.”
14. He took him to Lookout Field on top of Pisgah. He built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.
15. “Stay here beside your offering,” he said to Balak, “while I am meeting over there.”
16. Adonai met Balaam there and put a message into his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak and speak thus.”
17. So he went to him, and behold, he and the princes of Moab were standing beside his offering. Balak asked him, “What did Adonai say?”
18. So he uttered his oracle and said: “Rise, Balak! Hear me, son of Zippor!
19. God is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes his mind! Does He speak and then not do it, or promise and not fulfill it?
20. Look, I received a command to bless. He has blessed—I cannot change it!