1   And Balaam said to Balac: ^note Build me here seuen altares, and prepare as manie calues, and rammes of the same number.

2   And when he had done according to the word of Balaam, they together laid a calfe and a ramme vpon an altar.

3   And Balaam said to Balac: Stand a while beside thy holocauste, vntil I goe, if happely the Lord wil meete me, and whatsoeuer he shal command, I wil speake to thee.

4   And when he was gone in hast, God mette him. And Balaam speaking to him, said: I haue erected seuen altares, and haue laid thereon a calfe and a ramme.

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

6   Returning he found Balac standing beside his holocauste, and al the princes of the Moabites:

7   and taking vp his parable, he said: From Aram hath Balac King of the Moabites brought me, from the mountaines of the East: Come, quoth he, and curse Iacob: make hast, and derest Israel.

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

9   From the highest flintes shal I see him, and from the hilles shal I view him. The people shal dwel alone, and among the Gentiles shal not be accounted.

10   Who may be able to number the dust of Iacob, and to know the number of the stocke of Israel? ^noteMy soule die the death of the iust, and my last endes be made like to them.

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

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

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

14   And when he had brought him into a high place, vpon the toppe of the mountaine Phasga, Balaam builded seuen altares, & laying thereon calues and rammes,

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

16   Whom when our Lord had mette, and had put the word in his mouth, he said:

Balac and Balaam. Returne to Balac and thus thou shalt speake to him.

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

18   But he taking vp his parable, said: Stand Balac, and harken, heare thou sonne of Sephor:

19   God is not as man, that he may lie, nor as the sonne of man, that he may be changed. Hath he said then, and wil he not doe? hath he spoken, and wil he not fulfil?

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

21   There is no Idol in Iacob, neither is there ^note simulachre to be seene in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the sound of the victorie of the king in him.

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

23   There is no Southsaying in Iacob, nor diuination in Israel. In their times it shal be said to Iacob and Israel what God hath wrought.

24   Behold the people shal rise vp as a lionesse, and as a lion shal raise it self: It shal not lie downe til it deuoure the pray, and drinke the bloud of the slaine.

25   And Balac said to Balaam: ^note neither curse, nor blesse him.

26   And he said: Did I not tel thee, that whatsoeuer God should command me, that would I doe?

27   And Balac said to him: Come, and I wil bring thee to an other place: if happely it please God that thence thou mayest curse them.

28   And when he had brought him vpon the toppe of the mountaine Phogor, which looketh to the wildernesse,

29   Balaam said to him: Build me here seuen altares, and prepare as manie calues, and rammes of the same number.

30   Balac did as Balaam had said: and he laide the calues and the rammes on euerie altar.

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