Deuteronomy 32

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

2. My teachings shall drop as the rain; my speech shall drop down as the dew, as the small rain on the tender plant, and as the showers on the grass

3. Because I will proclaim the name of the LORD, and ascribe greatness to our God.

4. He is the Rock; His work is perfect for all His ways are just, a God of faithfulness, and without iniquity; just and upright is He.

5. They have corrupted themselves: they are not His children; it is their blemish; they are a crooked and perverse generation.

6. Is this the way you pay back to the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father Who bought you? Has He not made you and established you?

7. Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.

8. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel,

9. For the LORD’S portion is His people. Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.

10. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste of a howling wilderness. He led him about, He cared for him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.

11. As an eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them and bears them on her wings,

12. The LORD alone led him, and there was no strange god with him.

13. He made him ride on the high places of the earth so that he might eat the increase of the fields. And He made him suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock,

14. Butter from cows, and milk from sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the sons of Bashan, and goats, with the finest wheat. And you drank wine, the blood of the grape.

15. But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, thick, and satisfied. Then he forsook God Who made him and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

16. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

17. They sacrificed to demons, not to God: to gods whom they knew not, to new ones newly come up, whom your fathers did not fear.

18. You forgot the Rock Who brought you forth and have forgotten the God Who formed you.

19. And the LORD saw and despised them because of the provoking of His sons and of His daughters.

20. And He said, ‘I will hide My face from them; I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

21. They have moved Me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked Me to anger with their vanities. And I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation,

22. For a fire is kindled in My anger, and shall burn to the grave beneath, and shall consume the earth with its increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23. I will heap up evils upon them. I will spend My arrows on them.

24. Exhaustion by famine, and consumption by burning heat, and bitter destruction, and the teeth of beasts I will send on them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

25. The sword outside, and the terror inside, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hairs.

26. I said I would dash them to pieces; I would make the memory of them to cease from among men

27. Had not I feared the provocation by an enemy lest their adversaries should misconstrue; lest they should say, “Our hand is high and the LORD has not done all this.” ’

28. For they are a nation without wisdom; neither is there any understanding in them.

29. If they were wise, they would understand this; they would consider their latter end!

30. How shall one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them and the LORD had shut them up?

31. For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.

32. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of gall. Their clusters are bitter.

33. Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps.

34. ‘Is not this laid up in store with Me and sealed up among My treasures?

35. Vengeance and retribution belong to Me. Their foot shall slide in time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come on them make haste.’

36. For the LORD shall judge His people; and He shall have compassion on His servants, for He sees that their power is gone, and only their imprisoned and abandoned remain.

37. And He shall say, ‘Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted?

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 your hiding place.

39. See now that I, even I am He, and there is no god besides Me. I kill, and I make alive; I wound and I heal. Neither is there any that can deliver out of My hand,

40. For I lift up My hand to heaven and say, “I live forever!

41. If I sharpen My glittering sword, and if My hand takes hold in judgment, I will give vengeance to My enemies and will reward those that hate Me.

42. I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the hairy scalp of the enemy.” ’

43. Rejoice, O, nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His foes and will be merciful to His land, to His people.”

44. And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun.

45. And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel.

46. And he said to them, “Set your hearts to all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to observe and to do, all the words of this law.

47. For it is no vain thing for you because it is your life. And by this word you shall prolong your days in the land where you go over Jordan, there to possess it.”

48. And the LORD spoke to Moses that same day, saying,

49. “Go up into the mountains of Abarim, to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, which is opposite Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan which I am giving to the children of Israel for a possession.

50. And die on the mountain where you ascend, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

51. Because you sinned against Me among the children of Israel at the Waters of Strife in Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not sanctify Me in the midst of the children of Israel,

52. Yet you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there to the land which I am giving to the children of Israel.”