Deuteronomy 32:1-52
32 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak,And let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 My instruction will fall as the rain;My words will trickle as the dew,As gentle rains upon grassAnd as copious showers upon vegetation.
3 For I will declare the name of Jehovah.+
Tell about the greatness of our God!+
4 The Rock, perfect is his activity,+For all his ways are justice.+
A God of faithfulness+ who is never unjust;+Righteous and upright is he.+
5 They are the ones who have acted corruptly.+
They are not his children, the defect is their own.+
They are a crooked and twisted generation!+
6 Is this the way that you should treat Jehovah,+O foolish and unwise people?+
Is he not your Father who caused your existence,+The One who made you and firmly established you?
7 Remember the days of old;Consider the years of past generations.
Ask your father, and he can tell you;+Your elders, and they will inform you.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,+When he divided the sons of Adam* from one another,+He fixed the boundary of the peoples+With regard for the number of the sons of Israel.+
9 For Jehovah’s people are his portion;+Jacob is his inheritance.+
10 He found him in a wilderness land+And in an empty, howling desert.+
He protectively encircled him, took care of him,+And safeguarded him as the pupil of his eye.+
11 Just as an eagle stirs up its nest,Hovers over its fledglings,Spreading out its wings, taking them,Carrying them on its pinions,+
12 Jehovah alone kept leading him;*+No foreign god was with him.+
13 He made him ride upon earth’s high places,+So that he ate the produce of the field.+
He nourished him with honey from the cragAnd oil out of a flinty rock,
14 Butter of the herd and milk of the flock,Together with the choicest* sheep,And rams of Baʹshan, and he-goats,Together with the finest* wheat;+And you drank wine from the blood* of grapes.
15 When Jeshʹu·run* grew fat, he kicked out rebelliously.
You have grown fat, you have become stout, you have become bloated.+
So he forsook God, who made him,+And despised the Rock of his salvation.
16 They incited him to fury with foreign gods;+They were offending him with detestable things.+
17 They were sacrificing to demons, not to God,+To gods that they had not known,New ones that came along recently,To gods that your forefathers did not know.
18 You forgot the Rock+ who fathered you,And you did not remember the God who gave birth to you.+
19 When Jehovah saw it, he rejected them+Because his sons and his daughters offended him.
20 So he said, ‘I will hide my face from them;+I will see what will become of them.
For they are a perverse generation,+Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.+
21 They have incited me to fury* with what is not a god;+They have offended me with their worthless idols.+
So I will incite them to jealousy with what is not a people;+I will offend them with a foolish nation.+
22 For my anger has kindled a fire+That will burn to the depths of the Grave,*+And it will consume the earth and its produceAnd will set ablaze the foundations of mountains.
23 I will increase their calamities;I will use up my arrows on them.
24 They will be exhausted from hunger+And eaten up by burning fever and bitter destruction.+
I will send the teeth of beasts against them+And the venom of reptiles of the dust.
25 Outside, a sword will bereave them;+Inside, there is terror+For both young man and virgin,Infant together with gray-haired man.+
26 I would have said: “I will scatter them;I will make the memory of them cease from among men,”
27 If not for my dread of the enemy’s reaction,+Because the adversaries might misconstrue it.+
They might say: “Our power has triumphed;+It was not Jehovah who did all of this.”
28 For they are a nation devoid of sense,*And there is no understanding among them.+
29 If only they were wise!+ They would ponder over this.+
They would think about their outcome.+
30 How could one chase after 1,000,And two put 10,000 to flight?+
Not unless their Rock had sold them+And Jehovah had surrendered them.
31 For their rock is not like our Rock,+Even our enemies have understood this.+
32 For their vine is from the vine of SodʹomAnd from the terraces of Go·morʹrah.+
Their grapes are grapes of poison,Their clusters are bitter.+
33 Their wine is the venom of serpents,The cruel poison of cobras.
34 Is this not stored up with me,Sealed up in my storehouse?+
35 Vengeance is mine, and retribution,+At the appointed time when their foot slips,+For the day of their disaster is near,And what awaits them will come quickly.’
36 For Jehovah will judge his people,+And he will feel pity for* his servants+When he sees that their strength has waned,And that only the helpless and weak remain.
37 Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,+The rock in whom they sought refuge,
38 Who used to eat the fat of their sacrifices,*To drink the wine of their drink offerings?+
Let them rise up and help you.
Let them become your place of refuge.
39 See now that I—I am he,+And there are no gods apart from me.+
I put to death, and I make alive.+
I wound,+ and I will heal,+And no one can rescue from my hand.+
40 For I raise my hand to heaven,And I swear: “As surely as I live forever,”+
41 If I sharpen my flashing swordAnd prepare my hand for judgment,+I will pay back vengeance on my adversaries+And bring retribution to those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,And my sword will eat flesh,With the blood of the slain and the captives,With the heads of the leaders of the enemy.’
43 Be glad, you nations, with his people,+For he will avenge the blood of his servants,+And he will repay vengeance to his adversaries+And will make atonement for* the land of his people.”
44 Thus Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people,+ he and Ho·sheʹa*+ the son of Nun.
45 After Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel,
46 he said to them: “Take to heart all the words of my warning to you today,+ so that you may command your sons to take care to do all the words of this Law.+
47 For this is no empty word for you, but it means your life,+ and by this word you may live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
48 Jehovah spoke to Moses on this same day, saying:
49 “Go up into this mountain of Abʹa·rim,+ Mount Neʹbo,+ which is in the land of Moʹab, which faces toward Jerʹi·cho, and view the land of Caʹnaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as a possession.+
50 Then you will die on the mountain you are about to ascend, and be gathered to your people,* just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor+ and was gathered to his people,
51 because both of you were unfaithful to me among the Israelites at the waters of Merʹi·bah+ of Kaʹdesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not sanctify me before the people of Israel.+
52 You will see the land from a distance, but you will not enter the land that I am giving to the people of Israel.”+
Footnotes
^ Or possibly, “the human race.”
^ That is, Jacob.
^ Lit., “fat of.”
^ Lit., “kidney fat of.”
^ Or “juice.”
^ Meaning “Upright One,” an honorary title for Israel.
^ Or “jealousy.”
^ Or possibly, “deaf to advice.”
^ Or “feel regret over.”
^ Or “eat their finest sacrifices.”
^ Or “will cleanse.”
^ The original name of Joshua. Hoshea is a shortened form of Hoshaiah, which means “Saved by Jah; Jah Has Saved.”
^ This is a poetic expression for death.
