Numbers 23:28

They have gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep. Moab wails over Nebo and over Medeba. Baldness is on all of their heads. Every beard is cut off.

I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness. I saw your fathers as the first ripe in the fig tree at its first season; but they came to Baal Peor, and consecrated themselves to the shameful thing, and became abominable like that which they loved.

Now Laban had gone to shear his sheep; and Rachel stole the teraphim that were her father’s.

Surely there is no enchantment with Jacob; Neither is there any divination with Israel. Now it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘What has God done!’

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from Yahweh.

Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

“Don’t make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, lest they play the prostitute after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one call you and you eat of his sacrifice;

and from Bamoth to the valley that is in the field of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looks down on the desert.

Balaam went with Balak, and they came to Kiriath Huzoth.

Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps Yahweh will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.” He went to a bare height.

He took him into the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars, and offered up a bull and a ram on every altar.

He said to Balak, “Stand here by your burnt offering, while I meet God over there.”

for they called the people to the sacrifices of their gods. The people ate and bowed down to their gods.

Your eyes have seen what Yahweh did because of Baal Peor; for Yahweh your God has destroyed all the men who followed Baal Peor from among you.

The man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod, and teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest.

The priest’s heart was glad, and he took the ephod, the teraphim, and the engraved image, and went with the people.

When midday was past, they prophesied until the time of the evening offering; but there was no voice, no answer, and nobody paid attention.

When they tell you, “Consult with those who have familiar spirits and with the wizards, who chirp and who mutter,” shouldn’t a people consult with their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?

It will happen that when Moab presents himself, when he wearies himself on the high place, and comes to his sanctuary to pray, that he will not prevail.

Moreover I will cause to cease in Moab,” says Yahweh, “him who offers in the high place, and him who burns incense to his gods.

So he fled with all that he had. He rose up, passed over the River, and set his face toward the mountain of Gilead.

The children of Israel traveled, and encamped in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan at Jericho.

The elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand. They came to Balaam, and spoke to him the words of Balak.

Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”

When Balaam saw that it pleased Yahweh to bless Israel, he didn’t go, as at the other times, to use divination, but he set his face toward the wilderness.

I see him, but not now. I see him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob. A scepter will rise out of Israel, and shall strike through the corners of Moab, and crush all the sons of Sheth.

The children of Gad built Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer,

They traveled from Almon Diblathaim, and encamped in the mountains of Abarim, before Nebo.

“ ‘So you shall not pollute the land where you live; for blood pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed in it, but by the blood of him who shed it.

Go up to the top of Pisgah, and lift up your eyes westward, and northward, and southward, and eastward, and see with your eyes; for you shall not go over this Jordan.

and all the Arabah beyond the Jordan eastward, even to the sea of the Arabah, under the slopes of Pisgah.

There shall not be found with you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who tells fortunes, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer,

I have not eaten of it in my mourning, neither have I removed any of it while I was unclean, nor given of it for the dead. I have listened to Yahweh my God’s voice. I have done according to all that you have commanded me.

They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods that they didn’t know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn’t dread.

Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. Yahweh showed him all the land of Gilead to Dan,

and the Arabah to the sea of Chinneroth, eastward, and to the sea of the Arabah, even the Salt Sea, eastward, the way to Beth Jeshimoth; and on the south, under the slopes of Pisgah:

The children of Israel also killed Balaam the son of Beor, the soothsayer, with the sword, among the rest of their slain.

Is the iniquity of Peor too little for us, from which we have not cleansed ourselves to this day, although there came a plague on the congregation of Yahweh,

They said to him, “Please ask counsel of God, that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous.”

Then the five men who went to spy out the country of Laish answered and said to their brothers, “Do you know that there is in these houses an ephod, and teraphim, and a carved image, and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do.”

When these went into Micah’s house, and took the engraved image, the ephod, the teraphim, and the molten image, the priest said to them, “What are you doing?”

He said, “You have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and have gone away! What more do I have? How can you ask me, ‘What ails you?’ ”

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected Yahweh’s word, he has also rejected you from being king.”

Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, on the mountain that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech the abomination of the children of Ammon.

Then he took his oldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him for a burnt offering on the wall. There was great wrath against Israel; and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?

Moreover Josiah removed those who had familiar spirits, the wizards, and the teraphim, and the idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might confirm the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found in Yahweh’s house.

They joined themselves also to Baal Peor, and ate the sacrifices of the dead.

Then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me;

Inspired judgments are on the lips of the king. He shall not betray his mouth.

The king’s heart is in Yahweh’s hand like the watercourses. He turns it wherever he desires.

because Yahweh of Armies has blessed them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.”

The dead shall not live. The departed spirits shall not rise. Therefore you have visited and destroyed them, and caused all memory of them to perish.

Yahweh, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them.

As he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place.

You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.

They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

For, because you have trusted in your works and in your treasures, you also will be taken. Chemosh will go out into captivity, his priests and his princes together.

Moab will be ashamed of Chemosh, as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their confidence.

Woe to you, O Moab! The people of Chemosh are undone; for your sons are taken away captive, and your daughters into captivity.

He said to me, “Son of man, I send you to the children of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me. They and their fathers have transgressed against me even to this very day.

For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shook the arrows back and forth. He consulted the teraphim. He looked in the liver.

Slanderous men have been in you to shed blood. In you they have eaten on the mountains. They have committed lewdness among you.

But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s dainties, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

For the children of Israel shall live many days without king, and without prince, and without sacrifice, and without sacred stone, and without ephod or idols.

My people consult with their wooden idol, and answer to a stick of wood. Indeed the spirit of prostitution has led them astray, and they have been unfaithful to their God.

For the teraphim have spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie; and they have told false dreams. They comfort in vain. Therefore they go their way like sheep. They are oppressed, because there is no shepherd.

Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of Yahweh which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.

Go therefore to the intersections of the highways, and as many as you may find, invite to the wedding feast.’

As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling.

But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.