Numbers 23:3-12

³Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand at your burnt offering and I will go. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” So he went away to a hilltop with no trees.

⁴While he was on the hilltop, God met him, and Balaam said to him, “I have built seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each one.”

⁵Yahweh put a message in Balaam's mouth and said, “Return to Balak and speak to him.”

⁶So Balaam returned to Balak, who was standing by his burnt offering, and all the leaders of Moab were with him.

⁷Then Balaam began to speak his prophecy and said, “Balak has brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. 'Come, curse Jacob for me,' he said. 'Come, defy Israel.'

⁸How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I oppose those whom Yahweh does not oppose?

⁹For from the top of the rocks I see him; from the hills I look at him. See, there is a people who live alone and do not consider themselves as just an ordinary nation.

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even only one-fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of a righteous person, and let my life's end be like his!”

¹¹Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but look, you have blessed them.”

¹²Balaam answered and said, “Should I not be careful to say only what Yahweh puts in my mouth?”