Deuteronomy 32
1 Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth.
Heaven, listen as I speak; Earth, hear what I'm saying.
2 Let my speech be looked for as the rain, and my words come down as dew, as the shower upon the herbage, and as snow upon the grass.
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.
3 For I have called on the name of the Lord: assign you greatness to our God.
I will praise the Lord's character. Tell everyone how great he is!
4 [As for God], his works [are] true, and all his ways [are] judgement: God [is] faithful, and there is no unrighteousness [in him]; just and holy [is] the Lord.
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.
5 They have sinned, not [pleasing] him; spotted children, a froward and perverse generation.
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.
6 Do you thus recompense the Lord? [is the] people thus foolish and unwise? did not he himself your father purchase you, and make you, and form you?
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?
7 Remember the days of old, consider the years for past ages: ask your father, and he shall relate to you, your elders, and they shall tell you.
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.
8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.
The Most High gave the nations their lands when he divided the human race; he fixed their borders depending on their gods.
9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance.
But the Lord's people are his, Israel is his chosen one.
10 He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry land: he led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of an eye.
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.
11 As an eagle would watch over his brood, and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings, and takes them up on his back:
Like an eagle watching over its nest, hovering over its chicks, he spread his wings and picked you up and carried you along.
12 the Lord alone led them, there was no strange god with them.
The Lord was the only one who led you; no foreign god was with him.
13 He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock.
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,
14 Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank wine, the blood of the grape.
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.
15 So Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked; he grew fat, he became thick and broad: then he forsook the God that made him, and departed from God his Saviour.
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.
16 They provoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me.
You made the Lord jealous by worshiping foreign gods; you made him angry with such disgusting practices.
17 They sacrificed to devils, and not to God; to gods whom they knew not: new and fresh [gods] came in, whom their fathers knew not.
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.
18 You have forsaken God that begot you, and forgotten God who feeds you.
You dismissed the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
19 And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters,
The Lord rejected them when he saw this; his sons and daughters made him angry.
20 and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what shall happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faith.
He said: “I will turn away from them. Then I'll see what happens to them! They are a perverse people, unfaithful children.
21 They have provoked me to jealousy with [that which is] not God, they have exasperated me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.
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.
22 For a fire has been kindled out of my wrath, it shall burn to hell below; it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it; it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Sheol h7585)
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)
23 I will gather evils upon them, and will fight with my weapons against them.
I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows shooting at them.
24 [They shall be] consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds, and there shall be irremediable destruction: I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the rage of [serpents] creeping on the ground.
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.
25 Without, the sword shall bereave them of children, and terror [shall issue] out of the secret chambers; the young man shall perish with the virgin, the suckling with him who has grown old.
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.
26 I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from amongst men.
I would have told them I was going to cut them to pieces and wipe out even the memory of them;
27 Were it not for the wrath of the enemy, lest they should live long, lest their enemies should combine against them; lest they should say, Our own high arm, and not the Lord, has done all these things.
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.’
28 It is a nation that has lost counsel, neither is there understanding in them.
Israel is a nation that doesn't think straight; none of them understand anything.
29 They had not sense to understand: let them reserve these things against the time to come.
How I wish they were wise, so they could understand it; they would recognize what was going to happen to them.
30 How should one pursue a thousand, and two rout tens of thousands, if God had not sold them, and the Lord delivered them up?
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?
31 For their gods are not as our God, but our enemies [are] void of understanding.
The rock they rely on is not like our Rock, as even our enemies admit.
32 For their vine [is] of the vine of Sodom, and their vine-branch of Gomorrha: their grape [is] a grape of gall, their cluster [is] one of bitterness.
But their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; they are bitter bunches.
33 Their wine [is] the rage of serpents, and the incurable rage of asps.
Their wine is the poison of serpents, deadly snake venom.
34 Behold! are not these things stored up by me, and sealed amongst my treasures?
I've stored this all up; it's sealed in my vaults.
35 In the day of vengeance I will recompense, whenever their foot shall be tripped up; for the day of their destruction [is] near to them, and the judgements at hand are close upon you.
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.”
36 For the Lord shall judge his people, and shall be comforted over his servants; for he saw that they were utterly weakened, and failed in the hostile invasion, and were become feeble:
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.
37 and the Lord said, Where are their gods on whom they trusted?
He'll ask, “What happened to your gods, the rock where your went for protection?
38 the fat of whose sacrifices you ate, and you drank the wine of their drink-offerings? let them arise and help you, and be your protectors.
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!
39 Behold, behold that I am [he], and there is no god beside me: I kill, and I will make to live: I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none who shall deliver out of my hands.
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.
40 For I will lift up my hand to heaven, and swear by my right hand, and I will say, I live for ever.
I hold up my hand to heaven and solemnly declare on my eternal life,
41 For I will sharpen my sword like lightning, and my hand shall take hold of judgement; and I will render judgement to my enemies, and will recompense them that hate me.
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.
42 I will make my weapons drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, [it shall glut itself] with the blood of the wounded, and from the captivity of the heads of [their] enemies that rule over them.
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.”
43 Rejoice, you heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; rejoice you Gentiles, with his people, and let all the sons of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people.
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.
44 And Moses wrote this song in that day, and taught it to the children of Israel; and Moses went in and spoke all the words of this law in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the [son] of Naue.
Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song for the people to hear.
45 And Moses finished speaking to all Israel.
After Moses finished reciting the whole song to all the Israelites,
46 And he said to them, Take heed with your heart to all these words, which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your sons, to observe and do all the words of this law.
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.
47 For this [is] no vain word to you; for it [is] your life, and because of this word you shall live long upon the land, into which you go over Jordan to inherit it.
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.”
48 And the Lord spoke to Moses in this day, saying,
That same day the Lord told Moses,
49 Go up to the mount Abarim, this mountain Nabau which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho, and behold the land of Chanaan, which I give to the sons of Israel:
“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.
50 and die in the mount whither you go up, and be added to your people; as Aaron your brother died in mount Or, and was added to his people.
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.
51 Because you disobeyed my word amongst the children of Israel, at the waters of strife of Cades in the wilderness of Sin; because you sanctified me not amongst the sons of Israel.
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.
52 You shall see the land before [you], but you shall not enter into it.
Though you will see the country that I am giving the Israelites from a distance, you won't enter it.”
