Numbers 23:7-17

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

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

⁹I shall see him from the tops of the rocks, and shall consider him from the hills. This people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.

¹⁰Who can count the dust of Jacob, and know the number of the stock of Israel? Let my soul die the death of the just, and my last end be like to them.

¹¹And Balac said to Balaam: What is this that thou dost? I sent for thee to curse my enemies: and thou contrariwise blessest them.

¹²He answered him: Call I speak any thing else but what the Lord commandeth?

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

¹⁴And when he had brought him to a high place, upon the top of mount Phasga, Balaam built seven altars, and laying on every one a calf and a ram,

¹⁵He said to Balac: Stand here by thy burnt offering while I go to meet him.

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

¹⁷Returning he found him standing by his burnt sacrifice, and the princes of the Moabites with him. And Balac said to him: What hath the Lord spoken?