DEUTERONOMY 32

Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; and let the earth hear the sayings of my mouth.

2 My doctrine shall drop like rain, my speech shall distil like dew, like raindrops on the tender grass, and like showers on the plants. 3 For I will proclaim the name of Yehowah:

ascribe greatness to our God.

4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are acts of judgment. A God of faithfulness, with no iniquity, just and upright is he. 5 They have dealt corruptly with him;

they are not his sons; it is their blemish;

a perverse and crooked generation.

6 Do you treat Yehowah so, O people, wanton and unwise? Is he not your father who acquired you, who made you and established you? 7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of passing generations;

ask your father, and he will tell you, and your elders, and they will say to you:

8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9 For Yehowah's portion is his people, Jacob is his allotted inheritance.

10 He found him in a land, a wilderness, and in a howling waste, a desert;

He encompassed him, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple* of his eye. 11 As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovering over its young, and spreading out its wings, so he took him, and carried him on his pinions. 12 Yehowah alone did lead him, and no foreign god was with him. 13 He caused him to ride on the heights of the land, and to eat the produce of the fields;

and he caused him to suck honey out of the crag, and oil out of the flinty rock-

14 curds from cattle and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs and rams, the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest grains of wheat-

and you drank choice wine, the blood of the grape. * That is pupil

15 But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked;

you grew fat, you became gross, you were covered with fat;

and he forsook God who made him, and despised the Rock of his salvation. 16 They moved him to jealousy because of foreign gods, by horrible acts they provoked him to anger. 17 They sacrificed to demons, to no-gods, to gods whom they did not know, new ones that came in recently, whom your fathers did not dread. 18 You are unmindful of the Rock who begot you, and have forgotten the God who formed you.

19 And Yehowah saw and despised them, because of the vexation caused by his sons and daughters. 20 And he said, Let me hide my face from them, let me see what their end will be;

for they are a perverse generation, sons in whom there is no faithfulness. 21 They have moved me to jealousy with what is no god, they have provoked me with their vanities;

so I will move them to jealousy with what is no people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them. 22 For a fire has flared up in my nostrils, and it will burn to deepest Sheol, and consume the earth and its increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will heap evils upon them;

I will expend my arrows against them. 24 They shall be exhausted with famine, and be food for flame and bitter destruction;

and I will send tooth and claw* against them, and the venom of snakes in the dust. 25 Outside the sword shall bereave, and inside, terror;

they shall destroy both young men and virgins, infants and men with grey hair. 26 I would have said, I will cut them to pieces, I will remove them from the memory of men;

27 except that I feared provocation by the enemy, and that their opponents would misunderstand, and say, Our hands are high, and it is not Yehowah who has done all this. * lit teeth of animals

28 For they are a nation who have rejected counsel, and there is no understanding in them. 29 If they were wise, they would consider this, they would understand what their end will be. 30 How should one chase a thousand of Israel, and two put ten thousand to flight, if it were not that their Rock had sold them, and Yehowah had delivered them up? 31 For their rock is not like our Rock, our enemies being the judges. 32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah;

their grapes are poison-grapes, they have bitter clusters;

33 their wine is the venom of snakes, and the deadly poison of cobras.

34 Is this not stored up with me, sealed up in my treasuries?

35 Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot shall slip;

for the day of their calamity is near, and the things prepared for them rush on. 36 For Yehowah will judge his people, and repent of his servants, when he sees that power has departed, and there is neither bound nor free. 37 So he will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they trusted, 38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? Let them rise up and help you, and be a shelter for you!

39 See now that I am he, and there is no god with me:

I bring death, and I bring life, I wound, and I heal;

and no one can deliver from my hands. 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, As I live for ever:

41 if I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will take vengeance on my opponents, and pay back those who hate me. 42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall feed on flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, with the hairy scalps* of the enemy. * Or poison of revenges

43 O nations, praise his people;

for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and take vengeance on his opponents, and reconcile his land and his people.

44 Then Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, together with Hoshea the son of Nun. 45 And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, 46 he said to them, Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your sons for them to take care to observe-all the words of this law. 47 For it is not a minor thing for you, it is your life; and by this means you shall prolong your days in the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

48 Then Yehowah spoke to Moses that same day, and said, 49 Climb this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab ea3t of Jericho, and view the land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel for a possession. 50 And you shall die on the mountain which you climb, and shall be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, 51 because you transgressed against me in the midst of the sons of Israel, at the waters of Meribah in Kadesh, in the desert of Zin, because you did not sanctify me in the midst of the sons of Israel. 52 For you shall view the land from a distance, but you shall not enter the land which I am about to give to the sons of Israel.