< Deuteronomy 32 >
1 “Give ear, O heavens, and I speak; And you hear, O earth, sayings of my mouth!
2 My doctrine drops as rain; My sayings flow as dew; As storms on the tender grass, And as showers on the herb,
3 For I proclaim the Name of YHWH; Ascribe greatness to our God!
4 The Rock—His work [is] perfect, For all His ways [are] just; God of steadfastness, and without iniquity; Righteous and upright [is] He.
5 It has done corruptly to Him; Their blemish is not of His sons, A generation perverse and crooked!
6 Do you act thus to YHWH, O people foolish and not wise? Is He not your Father—He who bought you? He made you, and establishes you.
7 Remember days of old—Understand the years of many generations—Ask your father, and he tells you; Your elderly, and they say to you:
8 In the Most High causing nations to inherit, In His separating sons of Adam—He sets up the borders of the peoples By the number of the sons of God [[or sons of Israel]].
9 For YHWH’s portion [is] His people, Jacob [is] the line of His inheritance.
10 He finds him in a land—a desert, And in a void—a howling wilderness, He turns him around—He causes him to understand—He keeps him as the apple of His eye.
11 As an eagle wakes up its nest, Flutters over its young ones, Spreads its wings [and] takes them, Carries them on its pinions—
12 YHWH alone leads him, And there is no strange god with him.
13 He makes him ride on high places of earth, And he eats increase of the fields, And He makes him suck honey from a rock, And oil out of the flint of a rock;
14 Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs, and rams of sons of Bashan, And male goats, with fat of kidneys of wheat; And of the blood of the grape you drink wine!
15 And Yeshurun waxes fat, and kicks: You have been fat, you have been thick, You have been covered. And he leaves God who made him, And dishonors the Rock of his salvation.
16 They make Him zealous with strangers, They make Him angry with abominations.
17 They sacrifice to the demons, not God, To gods they have not known, New ones—they came from the vicinity; Your fathers have not feared them!
18 You forget the Rock that begot you, And neglect God who forms you.
19 And YHWH sees and despises—For the provocation of His sons and His daughters.
20 And He says: I hide My face from them, I see what their latter end [is]; For they [are] a contrary generation, Sons in whom is no steadfastness.
21 They have made Me jealous by [what is] not God, They made Me angry by their vanities; And I make them jealous by [what is] not a people, I make them angry by a foolish nation.
22 For a fire has been kindled in My anger, And it burns to the lowest [part] of Sheol, And consumes earth and its increase, And sets on fire [the] foundations of mountains. (Sheol )
23 I heap calamities on them, I consume My arrows on them.
24 Exhausted by famine, And consumed by heat and bitter destruction—I also send the teeth of beasts on them, With poison of fearful things of the dust.
25 The sword destroys from outside, And out of the inner-chambers—terror, Both youth and virgin, Suckling with man of grey hair.
26 I have said: I blow them away, I cause their remembrance to cease from man;
27 If I do not fear the anger of an enemy, Lest their adversaries know—Lest they say, Our hand is high, And YHWH has not worked all this.
28 For they [are] a nation lost to counsels, And there is no understanding in them.
29 If only they were wise, They would deal wisely [with] this, They would attend to their latter end!
30 How does one pursue a thousand, And two cause a myriad to flee, If not that their Rock has sold them, And YHWH has shut them up?
31 For their rock [is] not as our Rock (And our enemies [are] judges!)
32 For their vine [is] of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes [are] grapes of gall—They have bitter clusters;
33 The poison of dragons [is] their wine And the fierce venom of cobras.
34 Is it not laid up with Me? Sealed among My treasures?
35 Vengeance and retribution [are] Mine, At the due time—their foot slides; For near is a day of their calamity, And things prepared for them have hastened.
36 For YHWH judges His people, And gives comfort over His servants. For He sees the going away of power, And none is restrained and left.
37 And He has said, Where [are] their gods—The rock in which they trusted?
38 Who eat the fat of their sacrifices, [And] drink the wine of their drink-offering? Let them arise and help you, Let it be a hiding place for you!
39 See, now, that I [am] He, And there is no god besides Me; I put to death and I keep alive; I have struck and I heal; And there is not a deliverer from My hand,
40 For I lift up My hand to the heavens, And have said, I live for all time!
41 If I have sharpened the brightness of My sword, And My hand lays hold on judgment, I return vengeance to My adversaries, And to those hating Me—I repay!
42 I make My arrows drunk with blood, And My sword devours flesh, From the blood of the pierced and captive, From the head of the leaders of the enemy.
43 Sing, O nations, [with] His people, For He avenges the blood of His servants, And He turns back vengeance on His adversaries, And has pardoned His land [and] His people.”
44 And Moses comes and speaks all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea son of Nun;
45 and Moses finishes to speak all these words to all Israel,
46 and says to them, “Set your heart to all the words which I am testifying against you today, that you command your sons to observe to do all the words of this law,
47 for it [is] not a vain thing for you, for it [is] your life, and by this thing you prolong days on the ground to where you are passing over the Jordan to possess it.”
48 And YHWH speaks to Moses on this very same day, saying,
49 “Go up to this Mount Abarim, Mount Nebo, which [is] in the land of Moab, which [is] on the front of Jericho, and see the land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel for a possession;
50 and die on the mountain to where you are going up, and be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron has died on Mount Hor and is gathered to his people;
51 because you trespassed against Me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-Kadesh, the wilderness of Zin, because you did not sanctify Me in the midst of the sons of Israel.
52 Indeed, you see the land before [you], but you do not go in there to the land which I am giving to the sons of Israel.”
