Numbers 22:20

²⁶But Balaam answered Balak, “Didn’t I tell you, saying, ‘All that the LORD speaks, that I must do’?”

¹³‘If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I can’t go beyond the LORD’s word, to do either good or bad from my own mind. I will say what the LORD says’?

¹²He answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak that which the LORD puts in my mouth?”

³⁵The LORD’s angel said to Balaam, “Go with the men; but you shall only speak the word that I shall speak to you.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

⁵They said to him, “Behold, you are old, and your sons don’t walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” ⁶But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD.

⁷The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them. ⁸According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they also do to you. ⁹Now therefore, listen to their voice. However, you shall protest solemnly to them, and shall show them the way of the king who will reign over them.”

¹⁶The LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”

²⁹Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came.

⁵The LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”

¹²“When you saw that Nahash the king of the children of Ammon came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ when the LORD your God was your king. ¹³Now therefore see the king whom you have chosen and whom you have asked for. Behold, the LORD has set a king over you. ¹⁴If you will fear the LORD, and serve him, and listen to his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then both you and also the king who reigns over you are followers of the LORD your God. ¹⁵But if you will not listen to the LORD’s voice, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the LORD’s hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

¹⁶“Now therefore stand still and see this great thing, which the LORD will do before your eyes. ¹⁷Isn’t it wheat harvest today? I will call to the LORD, that he may send thunder and rain; and you will know and see that your wickedness is great, which you have done in the LORD’s sight, in asking for a king.”

¹⁸So Samuel called to the LORD, and the LORD sent thunder and rain that day. Then all the people greatly feared the LORD and Samuel.

¹⁹All the people said to Samuel, “Pray for your servants to the LORD your God, that we not die; for we have added to all our sins this evil, to ask for a king.”

²The LORD’s word came to me, saying, ³“Son of man, these men have taken their idols into their heart, and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired of at all by them? ⁴Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols into his heart and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face then comes to the prophet, I the LORD will answer him there according to the multitude of his idols, ⁵that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.”’