Deuteronomy 32:1-47 - Song Of Moses

¹ Pay attention, heavens, and I will speak;
listen, earth, to the words of my mouth.
² Let my teaching fall like rain
and my word settle like dew,
like gentle rain on new grass
and showers on tender plants.
³ For I will proclaim Yahweh’s name.
Declare the greatness of our God!
⁴ The Rock—His work is perfect;
all His ways are entirely just.
A faithful God, without prejudice,
He is righteous and true. ⁵ His people have acted corruptly toward Him;
this is their defect—they are not His children
but a devious and crooked generation.
⁶ Is this how you repay the Lord,
you foolish and senseless people?
Isn’t He your Father and Creator?
Didn’t He make you and sustain you?
⁷ Remember the days of old;
consider the years long past.
Ask your father, and he will tell you,
your elders, and they will teach you.
⁸ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance
and divided the human race,
He set the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the people of Israel.
⁹ But the Lord’s portion is His people,
Jacob, His own inheritance. ¹⁰ He found him in a desolate land,
in a barren, howling wilderness;
He surrounded him, cared for him,
and protected him as the pupil of His eye.
¹¹ He watches over His nest like an eagle
and hovers over His young;
He spreads His wings, catches him,
and lifts him up on His pinions.
¹² The Lord alone led him,
with no help from a foreign god.
¹³ He made him ride on the heights of the land
and eat the produce of the field.
He nourished him with honey from the rock
and oil from flint-like rock,
¹⁴ cream from the herd and milk from the flock,
with the fat of lambs,
rams from Bashan, and goats,
with the choicest grains of wheat;
you drank wine from the finest grapes. ¹⁵ Then Jeshurun became fat and rebelled—
you became fat, bloated, and gorged.
He abandoned the God who made him
and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
¹⁶ They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods;
they enraged Him with detestable practices.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods they had not known,
new gods that had just arrived,
which your fathers did not fear.
¹⁸ You ignored the Rock who gave you birth;
you forgot the God who gave birth to you. ¹⁹ When the Lord saw this, He despised them,
provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.
²⁰ He said: “I will hide My face from them;
I will see what will become of them,
for they are a perverse generation—
unfaithful children.
²¹ They have provoked My jealousy
with their so-called gods;
they have enraged Me with their worthless idols.
So I will provoke their jealousy
with an inferior people;
I will enrage them with a foolish nation.
²² For fire has been kindled because of My anger
and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the land and its produce,
and scorches the foundations of the mountains. ²³ “I will pile disasters on them;
I will use up My arrows against them.
²⁴ They will be weak from hunger,
ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague;
I will unleash on them wild beasts with fangs,
as well as venomous snakes that slither in the dust.
²⁵ Outside, the sword will take their children,
and inside, there will be terror;
the young man and the young woman will be killed,
the infant and the gray-haired man. ²⁶ “I would have said: I will cut them to pieces
and blot out the memory of them from mankind,
²⁷ if I had not feared insult from the enemy,
or feared that these foes might misunderstand
and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed;
it wasn’t the Lord who did all this.’” ²⁸ Israel is a nation lacking sense
with no understanding at all.
²⁹ If only they were wise, they would figure it out;
they would understand their fate.
³⁰ How could one man pursue a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
³¹ But their “rock” is not like our Rock;
even our enemies concede.
³² For their vine is from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poisonous;
their clusters are bitter.
³³ Their wine is serpents’ venom,
the deadly poison of cobras. ³⁴ “Is it not stored up with Me,
sealed up in My vaults?
³⁵ Vengeance belongs to Me; I will repay.
In time their foot will slip,
for their day of disaster is near,
and their doom is coming quickly.”
³⁶ The Lord will indeed vindicate His people
and have compassion on His servants
when He sees that their strength is gone
and no one is left—slave or free.
³⁷ He will say: “Where are their gods,
the ‘rock’ they found refuge in?
³⁸ Who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up and help you;
let it be a shelter for you.
³⁹ See now that I alone am He;
there is no God but Me.
I bring death and I give life;
I wound and I heal.
No one can rescue anyone from My hand.
⁴⁰ I raise My hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever,
⁴¹ when I sharpen My flashing sword,
and My hand takes hold of judgment,
I will take vengeance on My adversaries
and repay those who hate Me.
⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood
while My sword devours flesh—
the blood of the slain and the captives,
the heads of the enemy leaders.” ⁴³ Rejoice, you nations, concerning His people,
for He will avenge the blood of His servants.
He will take vengeance on His adversaries;
He will purify His land and His people.

⁴⁴ Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the presence of the people. ⁴⁵ After Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶ he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law. ⁴⁷ For they are not meaningless words to you but they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”