Balaam instructed Balak: "Stand watch here beside your Whole-Burnt-Offering while I go off by myself. Maybe GOD will come and meet with me. Whatever he shows or tells me, I'll report to you." Then he went off by himself.
Then Balaam spoke his message-oracle: Balak led me here from Aram, the king of Moab all the way from the eastern mountains. "Go, curse Jacob for me; go, damn Israel."
But who could ever count the dust of Jacob or take a census of cloud-of-dust Israel? I want to die like these right-living people! I want an end just like theirs!
Balak said to him, "Go with me to another place from which you can only see the outskirts of their camp--you won't be able to see the whole camp. From there, curse them for my sake."
God is not man, one given to lies, and not a son of man changing his mind. Does he speak and not do what he says? Does he promise and not come through?
Look, a people rising to its feet, stretching like a lion, a king-of-the-beasts, aroused, Unsleeping, unresting until its hunt is over and it's eaten and drunk its fill.
Balak said to Balaam, "Please, let me take you to another place; maybe we can find the right place in God's eyes where you'll be able to curse them for me."