< Deuteronomy 32 >

1 Heaven, listen as I speak; Earth, hear what I'm saying.
“Listen to me, [all you who are in the] heavens, and [all you who are on the] earth, listen to what I say [MTY].
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.
I wish/desire that my teaching will fall on you like rain drops or be like dew on the ground, and be like a gentle rain on the young plants, like showers on the grass.
3 I will praise the Lord's character. Tell everyone how great he is!
I will praise Yahweh [MTY]. And [all you people should] tell others that our God is very 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 like a rock [MET] [under which we are protected]; [everything] that he does is perfect and completely just/fair [DOU]. He always does what he says that he will do; he never does anything that is wrong.
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.
“But [you Israeli people] have been very unfaithful to him; because of your sins, you no longer [deserve to] be his children. You are extremely wicked and deceitful [DOU].
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?
You foolish and senseless [DOU] people, (is this the way that you should repay Yahweh [for all that he has done for you]?/this is certainly not the way that you should repay Yahweh [for all that he has done for you].) [RHQ] He is your father; he created you [RHQ]; he caused you to become a nation.
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.
“Think about [what happened] long ago; consider what happened to your ancestors. Ask your parents, and they will inform you; ask the older people, and they will tell you.
8 The Most High gave the nations their lands when he divided the human race; he fixed their borders depending on their gods.
When God, who is greater than any other god, long ago divided the people into groups, he assigned to the nations their land. He determined where each people-group should live and (assigned to/chose for) each people-group a god/angel.
9 But the Lord's people are his, Israel is his chosen one.
But Yahweh decided that we would be his people; he chose [us, the descendants of] Jacob, to belong to him.
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 saw [our ancestors] when they were in a desert, wandering in a land (that was desolate/where no people lived). He protected them and took care of them, as every person takes good care of his own eyes. [SIM, IDM]
11 Like an eagle watching over its nest, hovering over its chicks, he spread his wings and picked you up and carried you along.
[Yahweh protected his people] just like an eagle encourages its babies [to fly] and flutters over them [MET], spreading its wings and catching them [if they start to fall].
12 The Lord was the only one who led you; no foreign god was with him.
Yahweh was the only one who led them; no other foreign god helped 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,
“[After they entered the land that Yahweh promised to give to them], Yahweh enabled them to rule the hilly areas; they ate the crops that grew in the fields. They found honey in the rocks, and their olive trees [MTY] grew [even] in stony ground.
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.
The cows gave them plenty of curds/yogurt, the goats gave them plenty of milk, they had well-fed sheep and cattle, they had very good wheat, and they made delicious wine from their grapes.
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.
“The Israeli people became rich and prosperous, but then they rebelled against God; they abandoned him, the one who created them, the one who powerfully saves them.
16 You made the Lord jealous by worshiping foreign gods; you made him angry with such disgusting practices.
So he abandoned them because they started to worship other/strange gods. Because of their worshiping disgusting idols, he became angry.
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 offered sacrifices to gods who were [really] demons, gods that their ancestors had never known; they offered sacrifices to gods that they had recently found out about, gods whom your ancestors had never revered.
18 You dismissed the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
They forgot [the true] God, the one who protects them [MET], the one who created them and caused them to live.
19 The Lord rejected them when he saw this; his sons and daughters made him angry.
“When Yahweh saw that [they had abandoned him], he became angry, so he rejected [the Israeli people, who are like] 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.
He said, ‘They are very wicked/stubborn people, very unfaithful; so I will no longer help them, and then I will watch and see what happens to them.
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 made me very angry because of their worshiping idols, which are not really gods; they have caused me to be [jealous [MET] because I want them to worship only me]. So now, in order to cause them to become jealous, I will send [to attack them an army of] a nation of worthless and foolish people.
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)
I will be very angry, and I will destroy them like a fire that will burn on the earth and all the way down to the place where dead people are [MET]; that fire will destroy the earth and everything that grows on it, and it will even burn what is down under the mountains. (Sheol h7585)
23 I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows shooting at them.
I will cause them to experience many disasters; [they will feel as though] [MET] I am shooting all my arrows at 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 die because of being hungry and because of having hot fevers and because of terrible diseases; I will send wild animals to attack [MTY] them, and poisonous snakes to bite [MTY] them.
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 [their houses, their enemies] will kill them [MTY] with swords, and in their homes, [their enemies will cause] them to be terrified. Their enemies will kill young men and young women, and they will kill infants and old people with gray hair.
26 I would have told them I was going to cut them to pieces and wipe out even the memory of them;
I wanted to scatter the Israeli people to distant countries in order that no one would ever remember them.
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 [if I did that], their enemies would wrongly boast that they were the ones who had [gotten rid of my people]; they would say, “We [SYN] are the ones who defeated them; it was not Yahweh who has done all these things.”’
28 Israel is a nation that doesn't think straight; none of them understand anything.
You Israelis are a nation of people who do not have any sense. None of you is wise.
29 How I wish they were wise, so they could understand it; they would recognize what was going to happen to them.
If you were wise, you would understand [why you would be punished]; you would have realized what was going to happen to you.
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?
[You would have realized] why 1,000 [of your soldiers] would be defeated by only one [of the enemy soldiers], and why two of your enemies would chase away 10,000 [Israeli soldiers]. [You would realize that this would happen] only if God, the one who always defended you [MET], had allowed your enemies to defeat you, because he had abandoned you.
31 The rock they rely on is not like our Rock, as even our enemies admit.
Your enemies know that their gods are not powerful like Yahweh, our God, [so their gods could not have defeated us Israelis].
32 But their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; they are bitter bunches.
Your enemies are like [MET] grapevines planted near [the ruins of] Sodom and Gomorrah [cities]; the grapes from those vines are bitter and poisonous;
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, deadly snake venom.
the wine [from those grapes] is like the poison of snakes [DOU].
34 I've stored this all up; it's sealed in my vaults.
[“Yahweh says], ‘I know [RHQ] [what I have planned to do to the Israeli people and to their enemies], and those plans are so secure [that it as though he locked them up] [MET].
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.”
I am the one who will get revenge and pay those enemies back for what they have done [to my people], at the right time for them to be punished [IDM]; they will soon experience disasters, and I will punish/destroy them quickly.’
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.
“But Yahweh will see that you who are truly his people, who (are innocent/have not done things that are wrong), and he will be merciful to you. And he will see that you are helpless, and that there are very few of you, slaves or free people, who are still alive.
37 He'll ask, “What happened to your gods, the rock where your went for protection?
Then Yahweh will ask his people, ‘Where are the gods that you thought would protect you [MET]?
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!
You gave to those gods the best parts of the animals that you sacrificed, and you poured out wine for them to drink. So, they should begin to help you; they should be the ones who will protect 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.
“But now you will realize that I, only I, am God; there is no other god who is [a real] god. I am the one who can kill people and who can cause people to live; I can wound people, and I can heal people, and there is no one who can prevent me from doing those things.
40 I hold up my hand to heaven and solemnly declare on my eternal life,
I raise my hand toward heaven and solemnly declare that just as sure as I live forever,
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.
that when I sharpen my sword, as I [SYN] prepare to punish people, I will get revenge on my enemies; I will pay back those who hate me.
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 kill all [of my enemies] with a sword; it will be as though I had arrows that will be covered with their blood. I will kill [MTY] all those whom I capture and cut off their leaders’ heads.’
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.
“You people of all nations, you as well as his people should praise Yahweh, because Yahweh gets revenge on those who kill the people who serve him; and he cleanses his people’s land which has become defiled because of their sins.”
44 Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song for the people to hear.
Joshua and Moses/I recited the words of that song while the Israeli people were listening.
45 After Moses finished reciting the whole song to all the Israelites,
When they/we finished reciting to the Israeli people the words of this song,
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/I said, “Never forget all these commands that I have been giving you today. Teach these laws to your children, in order that they will faithfully obey all of them.
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.”
These instructions are very important [LIT]. If [you obey] them, you will live a long time in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan [River] to occupy.”
48 That same day the Lord told Moses,
On that same day, Yahweh said to Moses/me,
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 to the Abarim Mountain range [here] in the Moab region, across from Jericho. Climb Nebo Mountain, and look [toward the west] to see Canaan land, the land that I am about to give to the Israeli people.
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.
You will die on that mountain [EUP, DOU], like your [older] brother Aaron died on Hor Mountain.
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.
You will die because both of you disobeyed me in the presence of the Israeli people, when you all were at Meribah Springs near Kadesh [town] in the Zin Desert. You did not honor and respect me in the presence of the Israeli people in the way that I deserve because I am God.
52 Though you will see the country that I am giving the Israelites from a distance, you won't enter it.”
[When you are on that mountain where I told you to go], you will see in the distance in front of you the land that I am about to give to the Israeli people, but you will not enter it.”

< Deuteronomy 32 >