Deuteronomy 32
1 Heaven, listen as I speak; Earth, hear what I'm saying.
Give ear, O heavens, to my voice; let the earth take note of the words of my mouth:
2 May my teaching fall gently like the rain; may my words drop lightly like the dew, like soft rain on new grass, like spring showers on growing plants.
My teaching is dropping like rain, coming down like dew on the fields; like rain on the young grass and showers on the garden plants:
3 I will praise the Lord's character. Tell everyone how great he is!
For I will give honour to the name of the Lord: let our God be named great.
4 He is the Rock. Everything he does is perfect, for all his ways are right. He is the trustworthy God who is never unjust; he is fair and honest.
He is the Rock, complete is his work; for all his ways are righteousness: a God without evil who keeps faith, true and upright is he.
5 His children have acted immorally towards him; so they are no longer his children because of their sinful stains. They are a perverse and corrupt people.
They have become false, they are not his children, the mark of sin is on them; they are an evil and hard-hearted generation.
6 Is this any way to repay the Lord, you foolish, stupid people? Isn't he your Father who created you? Isn't he the one who turned you into a nation and made you strong?
Is this your answer to the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? Is he not your father who has given you life? He has made you and given you your place.
7 Remember the olden days; think about times long ago. God and ask your father, and he will explain them to you. Talk to your elders, and they will let you know.
Keep in mind the days of the past, give thought to the years of generations gone by: go to your father and he will make it clear to you, to the old men and they will give you the story.
8 The Most High gave the nations their lands when he divided the human race; he fixed their borders depending on their gods.
When the Most High gave the nations their heritage, separating into groups the children of men, he had the limits of the peoples marked out, keeping in mind the number of the children of Israel.
9 But the Lord's people are his, Israel is his chosen one.
For the Lord's wealth is his people; Jacob is the land of his heritage.
10 He found you in a desert land, in a desolate wasteland of whirlwinds. He protected you; he cared for you; he looked after you as the one he loved the most.
He came to him in the waste land, in the unpeopled waste of sand: putting his arms round him and caring for him, he kept him as the light of his eye.
11 Like an eagle watching over its nest, hovering over its chicks, he spread his wings and picked you up and carried you along.
As an eagle, teaching her young to make their flight, with her wings outstretched over them, takes them up on her strong feathers:
12 The Lord was the only one who led you; no foreign god was with him.
So the Lord only was his guide, no other god was with him.
13 The Lord gave you the high country to rule, and fed you with the crops of the field to eat. He sustained you with honey from the rock and olive oil from the flinty crag,
He put him on the high places of the earth, his food was the increase of the field; honey he gave him out of the rock and oil out of the hard rock;
14 with yogurt from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, along with the best wheat. You drank the wine made from the best grapes.
Butter from his cows and milk from his sheep, with fat of lambs and sheep of Bashan, and goats, and the heart of the grain; and for your drink, wine from the blood of the grape.
15 But Israel, you grew fat and rebelled—fat, overweight, and bloated with food. You abandoned the God who made you and despised the Rock of your salvation.
But Jeshurun became fat and would not be controlled: you have become fat, you are thick and full of food: then he was untrue to the God who made him, giving no honour to the Rock of his salvation.
16 You made the Lord jealous by worshiping foreign gods; you made him angry with such disgusting practices.
The honour which was his they gave to strange gods; by their disgusting ways he was moved to wrath.
17 You offered sacrifices to demons instead of God, to gods you didn't know anything about, to brand-new gods that your forefathers didn't worship.
They made offerings to evil spirits which were not God, to gods who were strange to them, which had newly come up, not feared by your fathers.
18 You dismissed the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
You have no thought for the Rock, your father, you have no memory of the God who gave you birth.
19 The Lord rejected them when he saw this; his sons and daughters made him angry.
And the Lord saw with disgust the evil-doing of his sons and daughters.
20 He said: “I will turn away from them. Then I'll see what happens to them! They are a perverse people, unfaithful children.
And he said, My face will be veiled from them, I will see what their end will be: for they are an uncontrolled generation, children in whom is no faith.
21 They have made me jealous by worshiping things that are not God; they have made me angry with their useless idols. So I will make them jealous using a people that aren't really a nation; I will make them angry using ignorant foreigners.
They have given my honour to that which is not God, moving me to wrath with their false worship: I will give their honour to those who are not a people, moving them to wrath by a foolish nation,
22 My anger has been set on fire, burning down to the depths of the grave, destroying the earth and all it produces, even setting fire to the foundations of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)
For my wrath is a flaming fire, burning to the deep parts of the underworld, burning up the earth with her increase, and firing the deep roots of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)
23 I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows shooting at them.
I will send a rain of troubles on them, my arrows will be showered on them.
24 They will waste away from hunger, destroyed by disease and poisonous plague. I will send wild animals to bite them with their teeth, the fangs of snakes that slide along the ground.
They will be wasted from need of food, and overcome by burning heat and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of the worms of the dust.
25 Outside in the streets the sword kills their children, inside their homes, they die from fright; young men and young women, children and old people.
Outside they will be cut off by the sword, and in the inner rooms by fear; death will take the young man and the virgin, the baby at the breast and the grey-haired man.
26 I would have told them I was going to cut them to pieces and wipe out even the memory of them;
I said I would send them wandering far away, I would make all memory of them go from the minds of men:
27 but I didn't want to hear their conquerors jeering, their enemies misunderstanding what had happened and saying, ‘We won all by ourselves, the Lord didn't have anything to do with it.’
But for the fear that their haters, uplifted in their pride, might say, Our hand is strong, the Lord has not done all this.
28 Israel is a nation that doesn't think straight; none of them understand anything.
For they are a nation without wisdom; there is no sense in them.
29 How I wish they were wise, so they could understand it; they would recognize what was going to happen to them.
If only they were wise, if only this was clear to them, and they would give thought to their future!
30 How on earth could one man chase after a thousand, or two make ten thousand run away, unless their Rock of protection had sold them, unless the Lord had surrendered them?
How would it be possible for one to overcome a thousand, and two to send ten thousand in flight, if their rock had not let them go, if the Lord had not given them up?
31 The rock they rely on is not like our Rock, as even our enemies admit.
For their rock is not like our Rock, even our haters themselves being judges.
32 But their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; they are bitter bunches.
For their vine is the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are the grapes of evil, and the berries are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, deadly snake venom.
Their wine is the poison of dragons, the cruel poison of snakes.
34 I've stored this all up; it's sealed in my vaults.
Is not this among my secrets, kept safe in my store-house?
35 I make sure justice is done, I will repay. The time is coming when they will fall, their day of disaster is approaching, their doom will soon arrive.”
Punishment is mine and reward, at the time of the slipping of their feet: for the day of their downfall is near, sudden will be their fate.
36 The Lord is going to vindicate his people; he will be merciful to his servants when he sees that they have no strength left, and that everyone is gone, whether slave or free.
For the Lord will be judge of his people, he will have pity for his servants; when he sees that their power is gone, there is no one, shut up or free.
37 He'll ask, “What happened to your gods, the rock where your went for protection?
And he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they put their faith?
38 Who ate the fat of your sacrifices and drank the wine of your drink offerings? Have them come and help you; have them come and protect you!
Who took the fat of their offerings, and the wine of their drink offering? Let them now come to your help, let them be your salvation.
39 Listen! I am the only God! There is no other God except me! I bring death, and I give life; I wound, and I heal. No one can be rescued from my power.
See now, I myself am he; there is no other god but me: giver of death and life, wounding and making well: and no one has power to make you free from my hand.
40 I hold up my hand to heaven and solemnly declare on my eternal life,
For lifting up my hand to heaven I say, By my unending life,
41 when I sharpen my shining sword and pick it up to execute judgment, I will repay my enemies and punish those who hate me as they deserve.
If I make sharp my shining sword, and my hand is outstretched for judging, I will give punishment to those who are against me, and their right reward to my haters.
42 My arrows will become drunk with blood, as my sword eats flesh; the blood of those who are killed and captured, the heads of the enemy's leaders.”
I will make my arrows red with blood, my sword will be feasting on flesh, with the blood of the dead and the prisoners, of the long-haired heads of my haters.
43 Celebrate with him! Let all God's angels worship him! Celebrate, foreigners, with his people; because he will pay back those who killed his children. He will punish his enemies, and repay those who hate him; he will purify his land and his people.
Be glad, O you his people, over the nations; for he will take payment for the blood of his servants, and will give punishment to his haters, and take away the sin of his land, for his people.
44 Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song for the people to hear.
So Moses said all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea, the son of Nun.
45 After Moses finished reciting the whole song to all the Israelites,
And after saying all this to the people,
46 he told them, “Think about all these words I've declared to you today, so you can order your children to follow carefully everything in this law.
Moses said to them, Let the words which I have said to you today go deep into your hearts, and give orders to your children to do every word of this law.
47 Don't treat these words as trivial because they are your life, and by them you will have long lives in the country that you will own after crossing the Jordan.”
And this is no small thing for you, but it is your life, and through this you may make your days long in the land which you are going over Jordan to take for your heritage.
48 That same day the Lord told Moses,
That same day the Lord said to Moses,
49 “Climb up into the Abarim mountains to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and look over the country of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for them to own.
Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab opposite Jericho; there you may see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel for their heritage:
50 There on the mountain you've climbed, you will die and join your people in death, in the same way your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people.
And let death come to you on the mountain where you are going, and be put to rest with your people; as death came to Aaron, your brother, on Mount Hor, where he was put to rest with his people:
51 For there at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Desert of Zin, you both were unfaithful to me. You misrepresented me to the Israelites when you didn't treat me as holy in their presence.
Because of your sin against me before the children of Israel at the waters of Meribath Kadesh in the waste land of Zin; because you did not keep my name holy among the children of Israel.
52 Though you will see the country that I am giving the Israelites from a distance, you won't enter it.”
So you will see the land before you, but you will not go into the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.
