Deuteronomy 32

1Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

2May my teaching fall like the rain; may my speech drip like the dew, like showers upon the tender grass, and like abundant rain upon the green plants.

3For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh; ascribe greatness to our God.

4The Rock—his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. He is a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he.

5They have acted corruptly toward him; they are not his children, because of their defect. They are a crooked and twisted generation.

6Is this how you repay Yahweh, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father, who created you? He made you and established you.

7Remember the days of old; consider the years of generation after generation. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will say to you.

8When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.

9For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob the share of his inheritance.

10He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he surrounded him, he cared for him, he guarded him like the pupil of his eye.

11Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young, he spreads out his wings, takes him, and carries him on his pinions.

12Yahweh alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

13He made him ride on the heights of the land, and he ate the produce of the field; he made him suck honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock.

14curds from the herd, and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, and rams, the offspring of Bashan, and goats, with the choicest wheat; and you drank foaming wine, the blood of grapes.

15But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; you grew fat, thick, and sleek. Then he forsook God who made him and treated with contempt the Rock of his salvation.

16They made him jealous with strangers; with abominations they provoked him to anger.

17They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new ones that had recently come, whom your fathers had not feared.

18You neglected the Rock who fathered you, and forgot the God who gave you birth.

19And Yahweh saw and rejected them, provoked to anger by his sons and daughters.

20And he said, “I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be, for they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.”

21They made me jealous with what is not a god; they provoked me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

22For a fire has been kindled in my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the earth and its produce, and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.

23I will heap disasters upon them; I will use up my arrows against them.

24wasted by famine, consumed by plague and bitter destruction; I will send against them the fangs of beasts, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust.

25Outside, the sword will bereave; and in the inner rooms, terror—both young man and virgin, nursing child together with gray-haired man.

26I said, ‘I would scatter them; I would make their memory cease from mankind,’

27Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is exalted, and Yahweh has not done all this.’

28For they are a nation devoid of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

29If only they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern their end.

30How could one pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had given them up?

31For their rock is not like our Rock, and our enemies are judges.

32For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter to them.

33Their wine is the venom of serpents, the cruel poison of cobras.

34Is it not laid up with me, sealed in my storehouses?

35Vengeance is mine, and recompense, at the time when their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and what is prepared for them hastens.

36For Yahweh will vindicate his people and will have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone, and there is none left, bond or free.

37And he will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge?’

38who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings—let them rise up and help you; let them be your shelter.

39See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me. I put to death and I make alive; I have wounded, and I will heal; and there is no one who can deliver from my hand.

40For I lift up my hand to heaven and say, ‘As I live forever,’

41when I sharpen the lightning of my sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will return vengeance on my adversaries, and I will repay those who hate me.

42I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh— with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the heads of the enemy leaders.

43Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will repay vengeance on his adversaries, and he will make atonement for his land and his people.

44Then Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Hoshea son of Nun.

45When Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

46And he said to them, “Set your heart on all the words that I am testifying to you today, which you shall command your sons to keep, to do all the words of this law.”

47For it is not an empty word for you, but it is your life, and by this word you will prolong your days on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.

48And Yahweh spoke to Moses on that very day, saying,

49Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession.

50and die on the mountain that you are ascending, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

51because you acted unfaithfully against me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not treat me as holy among the sons of Israel.

52For you shall see the land from a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.