Deuteronomy 32
1 Heaven, listen as I speak; Earth, hear what I'm saying.
Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear 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 doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as heavy rains upon the grass, and as showers upon herbs.
3 I will praise the Lord's character. Tell everyone how great he is!
When I call on the name of the Lord, ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
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, his work is perfect; for all his ways are just: the God of truth and without iniquity, just 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.
The corruption is not his, it is the defect of his children, of the perverse and crooked 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?
Will ye thus requite the Lord, O people, worthless and unwise? is he not thy father who hath bought thee? is it not he who hath made thee, and established thee?
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.
Remember the days of old, consider the years of former generations; ask thy father, and he will tell thee; thy elders, and they will say it unto thee:
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 divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man: he set the bounds of the tribes according to the number of the sons of Israel.
9 But the Lord's people are his, Israel is his chosen one.
For the portion of the Lord is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
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 found him in a desert land, and in the waste of the howling of the wilderness; he encircled him, he watched him, he guarded him as the apple 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 stirreth up his nest, fluttereth over his young, spreadeth abroad his wings, seizeth them, beareth them aloft on his pinions:
12 The Lord was the only one who led you; no foreign god was with him.
So did the Lord alone lead him, and there was not with him a stranger god.
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 caused him to stride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the products of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty stone;
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.
Cream of cows, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of wheat; and of the blood of the grape thou drunkest unmixed wine.
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.
Thus did Yeshurun grow fat, and he kicked; [thou art grown fat, thick, fleshy; ] and then he forsook the God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16 You made the Lord jealous by worshiping foreign gods; you made him angry with such disgusting practices.
They incensed him with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger.
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 sacrificed unto evil spirits, things that are not god, gods that they know not, new ones lately come up, which your fathers dreaded not.
18 You dismissed the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
Of the Rock that begat thee thou wast unmindful, and forgottest the God that had brought thee forth.
19 The Lord rejected them when he saw this; his sons and daughters made him angry.
And the Lord saw this, and he was angry; because of the provoking of his sons and of his 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, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end will be; for a perverse generation are they, children in whom there 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 moved me to wrath with things that are not god; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities; and I too will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a worthless 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 a fire is kindled in my anger, and it burneth unto the lowest deep; and it consumeth the earth with her products, and it setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)
23 I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows shooting at them.
I will heap upon them miseries; all my arrows will I spend upon 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 shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter deadly disease; also the tooth of beasts will I let loose against them, with the poison of serpents that crawl in 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.
Without shall the sword destroy, and terror within the chambers, both the young man and the virgin, the suckling with the man of gray hairs.
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 drive them into one corner, I would cause their remembrance to cease from among 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.’
Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their oppressors should mistake the truth, lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not wrought all this.
28 Israel is a nation that doesn't think straight; none of them understand anything.
For a nation void of counsel are they, and there is no understanding 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 they were but wise, they would understand this, they would consider their latter end!
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 should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?
31 The rock they rely on is not like our Rock, as even our enemies admit.
For not as our Rock is their rock, even our enemies 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 from the vine of Sodom is their vine, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, they bear bitter clusters.
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, deadly snake venom.
The poison of serpents is their wine, and the deadly venom of asps.
34 I've stored this all up; it's sealed in my vaults.
Behold! this is laid up in store with me, it is sealed up among my treasures!
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.”
Mine are vengeance and recompense, at the time that their foot shall slip; for nigh draweth the day of their calamity, and the future speedeth along for them.
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 espouse the cause of his people, and bethink himself concerning his servants: when he seeth that their power is gone, and the guarded and fortified axe no more.
37 He'll ask, “What happened to your gods, the rock where your went for protection?
Then will he say, Where are their gods, the rock in whom they trusted,
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!
They that ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? let them arise and help you, let them be a protection over you.
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 that I, even I, am he, ard there is no god with me: I alone kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; and no one can deliver out of my hand.
40 I hold up my hand to heaven and solemnly declare on my eternal life,
For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
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.
When I whet my glittering sword, and my hand taketh hold on judgment: I will render vengeance unto my enemies, and those that hate me will I requite.
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 drunken with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; from the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the crushed head of the enemy.
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.
Speak aloud, O ye nations, the praises of his people; for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and vengeance will he render to his adversaries, and forgive his land, and people.
44 Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song for the people to hear.
And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.
45 After Moses finished reciting the whole song to all the Israelites,
And when Moses had made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:
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.
He said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify against you this day, so that ye may command them your children, to observe to do all the words 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.”
For it is not a vain word for you; on the contrary, it is your life; and through this word shall ye live many days in the land, whither ye go over the Jordan to possess it.
48 That same day the Lord told Moses,
And the Lord spoke unto Moses on that self-same day, saying,
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.
Get thee up into this mountain of 'Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is in front of Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession;
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 die on the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died on mount Hor, and was gathered unto 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 ye trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of contention at Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of 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.”
For from afar shalt thou see the land; but thither shalt thou not go unto the land which I give the children of Israel.
