Numbers 23

¹And Balaam said to Balac: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and rams of the same number.

²And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they together laid a calf and a ram upon an altar.

³And Balaam said to Balac: Stand a while beside thy holocaust, until I go, if happenly the Lord will meet me, and whatsoever he shall command, I will speak to thee.

⁴And when he was gone in haste, God met him. And Balaam speaking to him, said: I have erected seven altars, and have laid thereon a calf and a ram.

⁵And our Lord put a word in his mouth, and said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou speak.

⁶Returning he found Balac standing beside his holocaust, and all the Princes of the Moabites:

⁷and taking up his parable, he said: From Aram hath Balac king of the Moabites brought me, from the mountains of the East: Come, quoth he, and curse Jacob: make haste, and detest Israel.

⁸How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? By what means may I detest, whom the Lord detesteth not?

⁹From the highest flints shall I see him, and from the hills shall I view him. The people shall dwell alone, and among the Gentiles shall not be accounted.

¹⁰Who may be able to number the dust of Jacob, and to know the number of the stock of Israel? My soul die the death of the just, and my last ends be made like to them.

¹¹And Balac said to Balaam: What is this that thou doest? That thou shouldst curse mine enemies I called thee: and thou contrary wise blessest them.

¹²To whom he answered: Can I speak ought else, but that which the Lord commandeth?

¹³Balac therefore said: Come with me into another place whence thou mayest see part of Israel, and canst not see the whole, from thence curse them.

¹⁴And when he had brought him into a high place, upon the top of the mountain Phasga, Balaam builded seven altars, and laying thereon calves and rams,

¹⁵he said to Balac: Stand here beside thy holocaust, whiles I go to meet him.

¹⁶Whom when our Lord had met, and had put the word in his mouth, he said: Return to Balac and thus thou shalt speak to him.

¹⁷Returning he found him standing beside his holocaust, and the Princes of the Moabites with him. To whom Balac said: What hath the Lord spoken?

¹⁸But he taking up his parable, said: Stand Balac, and hearken, hear thou son of Sephor:

¹⁹God is not as man, that he may lie, nor as the son of man, that he may be changed. Hath he said then, and will he not do? Hath he spoken, and will he not fulfill?

²⁰I was brought to bless, the blessing I am not able to stay.

²¹There is no idol in Jacob, neither is there simulachre to be seen in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the victory of the king in him.

²²God hath brought him out of Ægypt, whose strength is like to the unicorn.

²³There is no Soothsaying in Jacob, nor divination in Israel. In their times it shall be said to Jacob and Israel what God hath wrought.

²⁴Behold the people shall rise up as a lioness and as a lion shall raise itself: It shall not lie down till it devour the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

²⁵And Balac said to Balaam: neither curse, nor bless him.

²⁶And he said: Did I not tell thee, that whatsoever God should command me, that would I do?

²⁷And Balac said to him: Come, and I will bring thee to another place: if happenly it please God that thence thou mayest curse them.

²⁸And when he had brought him upon the top of the mountain Phogor, which looketh to the wilderness,

²⁹Balaam said to him: Build me here seven altars, and prepare as many calves, and rams of the same number.

³⁰Balac did as Balaam had said: and he laid the calves and the rams on every altar.