Deuteronomy 32
1 “Listen, heavens, and I will speak; hear, earth, the words of my mouth.
2 May my teaching fall like rain; may my words descend like dew, like showers on grass, like downpours on young plants.
3 For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; give greatness to our God.
4 The Rock—his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He is a faithful God, without injustice; righteous and upright is he.
5 They have acted corruptly toward him; they are no longer his children. Their flaw is their own—a crooked and twisted generation.
6 Is this how you repay the LORD, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, who bought you? He made you and established you.
7 Remember the days of old; consider the years from generation to generation. Ask your father, and he will tell you; ask your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated humankind, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.
9 For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the measure of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, in a howling wasteland. He surrounded him, cared for him, guarded him as the pupil of his own eye.
11 Like an eagle stirring up its nest and hovering over its young, he spread his wings, took him, and carried him on his pinions.
12 The LORD alone led him; no foreign god was with him.
13 He made him ride over the heights of the land, and he ate the produce of the fields. He made him suck honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone.”
14 “Curds from cattle and milk from sheep, with the fat of lambs, rams of Bashan, and goats, with the finest wheat. You drank the blood of grapes, sparkling wine.
15 Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, stout, and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
16 They made him jealous with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked his anger.
17 They sacrificed to demons, which are no gods, to gods they had never known, new ones that had recently arrived, whom your ancestors had not feared.
18 You deserted the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 The LORD saw this and rejected them, provoked by his sons and daughters.
20 He said, ‘I will hide my face from them and see what becomes of them, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.
21 They made me jealous with what is no god; they provoked my anger with their empty idols. So I will make them jealous with a people who are no people; with a foolish nation I will provoke their anger.
22 For a fire has been kindled in my anger and burns to the deepest Sheol; it devours the earth and its produce, and sets the foundations of the mountains ablaze.
23 I will heap disasters on them; I will use up my arrows against them.
24 They will be consumed by famine, devoured by burning fever and bitter plague. I will send the teeth of wild beasts against them, along with the venom of creatures that crawl in the dust.
25 Outside, the sword will bereave; inside the rooms, terror. Young man and young woman will die, infant and gray-haired man alike.
26 I said, ‘I will scatter them; I will erase their memory from among mortals.’”
27 “‘But I feared the enemy’s provocation, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say, “Our hand has prevailed; the LORD did not do all this.”’
28 For they are a nation that has lost its counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
29 If they were wise, they would understand this; they would see what their end will be.
30 How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them and the LORD had handed them over?
31 For their rock is not like our Rock; even our enemies judge this.
32 Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are poisonous grapes, and 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 away in my treasuries?
35 Vengeance and repayment belong to me, for the time when their foot slips. The day of their ruin is near, and what awaits them is coming quickly.
36 For the LORD will judge his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone and none remains, bond or free.
37 Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let them shelter you!’
39 See now that I, I am he, and there is no god besides me. I put to death and give life; I wound and I heal, and no one can rescue anyone from my hand.”
40 “I raise my hand to heaven and say, ‘As surely as I live forever,’
41 when I sharpen my flashing sword and take judgment in my hand, I will bring vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh: the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy’s leaders.
43 Rejoice, nations, with his people! For he will avenge the blood of his servants, bring vengeance on his adversaries, and make atonement for his land and his people.”
44 Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea son of Nun.
45 Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel.
46 He said to them, “Take to heart all the words with which I testify against you today, so that you may command your children to observe and carefully do all the words of this Law.
47 For this is no empty word for you; it is your life, and by this word you will prolong your days in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
48 That same day the LORD spoke to Moses:
49 “Go up to this mountain of Abarim, Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as a possession.
50 Die on the mountain you are going up to, and be gathered to your kin, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin.
51 This is because you were unfaithful to me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you did not honor me as holy among the Israelites.
52 You will see the land from a distance, but you will not enter it—the land I am giving to the Israelites.”
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