Deuteronomy 32

¹ ‘Listen, heavens, while I speak; earth, hear the words that I am saying.

² May my teaching fall like the rain, may my word drop down like the dew, like showers on fresh grass and light rain on the turf.

³ For I proclaim the name of Yahweh. Oh, tell the greatness of our God!

⁴ ‘He is the Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are Equity. A God faithful, without unfairness, Uprightness itself and Justice.

⁵ They have acted perversely, those he begot without blemish, a deceitful and underhand brood.

⁶ Is this the return you make to Yahweh? O foolish, unwise people! Is not this your father, who gave you being, who made you, by whom you subsist?

⁷ Think back on the days of old, think over the years, down the ages. Ask of your father, let him teach you; of your elders, let them enlighten you.

⁸ When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided the sons of men, he fixed their bounds according to the number of the sons of God;[*a]

⁹ but Yahweh’s portion was his people, Jacob his share of inheritance.

¹⁰ ‘In the waste lands he adopts him, in the howling desert of the wilderness. He protects him, rears him, guards him as the pupil of his eye.

¹¹ Like an eagle watching its nest, hovering over its young, he spreads out his wings to hold him, he supports him on his pinions.

¹² ‘Yahweh alone is his guide, with him is no alien god.

¹³ He gives him the heights of the land to ride, he feeds him on the yield of the mountains, he gives him honey from the rock to taste, and oil from the flinty crag;

¹⁴ curds from the cattle, milk from the flock, with rich food of the pastures, rams of Bashan’s breed, and goats, rich food of the wheat’s ear, and blood of the fermenting grape for drink.

¹⁵ ‘Jacob ate and had his fill, Jeshurun grew fat, turned restive. (You grew fat, gross, bloated.) He disowned the God who made him, dishonoured the Rock, his salvation.

¹⁶ They roused him to jealousy with alien gods, with things detestable they angered him.

¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons who are not God, to gods they did not know, newcomers of yesterday whom their fathers had never feared.

¹⁸ (You forget the Rock who begot you, unmindful now of the God who fathered you.)

¹⁹ Yahweh has seen this, and in his anger cast off his sons and his daughters.

²⁰ “1 shall hide my face from them,” he says “and see what becomes of them. For they are a deceitful brood, children with no loyalty in them.

²¹ They have roused me to jealousy with what is no god, they have angered me with their beings of nothing; I, then, will rouse them to jealousy with what is no people, I will anger them with an empty-headed nation.

²² Yes, a fire has blazed from my anger, it will burn to the depths of Sheol; it will devour the earth and all its produce, it will set fire to the foundations of the mountains.

²³ I will hurl disasters on them, and on them I will spend all my arrows.

²⁴ For weapons I shall have barns of famine, fever and consumption for poison. I will send the sharp teeth of the wild beast, and the venom of creeping things against them.

²⁵ Outside, the sword shall carry off their children, and terror shall reign within. Youth and maid alike shall perish, suckling and greybeard both together.

²⁶ I should crush them to dust, I said, I should wipe out their memory among men,

²⁷ did I not fear the boasting of the enemy. But let not their foes be mistaken! Let them not say: Our own power wins the victory, Yahweh plays no part in this.

²⁸ What a nation of short sight it is; in them there is no understanding.

²⁹ Were they wise, they would succeed, they would be able to read their destiny.

³⁰ How else could one man rout a thousand, how could two put ten thousand to flight, were it not that their Rock has sold them, that Yahweh has delivered them up?

³¹ “But their rock is not like our Rock; our enemies are no intercessors.[*b]

³² For their stock springs from the vinestock of Sodom and from the groves of Gomorrah: their grapes are poisonous grapes, their clusters are envenomed;

³³ their wine is the poison of serpents, the vipers’ cruel venom.

³⁴ But he, is he not something precious to me, sealed inside my treasury?

³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and requital, for the time when they make a false step. For it is close, the day of their ruin; their doom comes at speed.

³⁶ (For Yahweh will see his people righted, he will take pity on his servants.) For he will see to it that their power fails, that, serf or freeman, there is not one remaining.

³⁷ Where are their gods? he will ask then, the rock where they thought to take refuge,

³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let these arise and help you, let these be the shelter above you!

³⁹ See now that I, I am He, and beside me there is no other god. It is I who deal death and life; when I have struck it is I who heal (and none can deliver from my hand).

⁴⁰ “Yes, I lift up my hand to heaven, and I say: As surely as I live for ever,

⁴¹ when I have whetted my flashing sword I will take up the cause of Right, I will give my foes as good again, I will repay those who hate me.

⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall feed on flesh: the blood of wounded and captives, the skulls of the enemy leaders.”

⁴³ ‘Heavens, rejoice with him, let the sons of God pay him homage! Nations, rejoice with his people, let God’s envoys tell of his power! For he will avenge the blood of his servants, he will give his foes as good again, he will repay those who hate him and purify the land of his people.’

⁴⁴ Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the people’s hearing.

⁴⁵ When Moses had finished reciting these words[*c] to all Israel,

⁴⁶ he said to them, ‘Take all these words to heart; I call them to witness against you today. You must order your children to keep and observe all the words of this Law.

⁴⁷ It is no idle thing you will be doing, for the Law is your life, and by its means you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.’

⁴⁸ Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day and said to him,

⁴⁹ ‘Climb Mount Nebo, that mountain of the Abarim range, in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Canaan which I am giving the sons of Israel as their domain.

⁵⁰ Die on the mountain you have climbed, and be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

⁵¹ Because you broke faith with me among the sons of Israel that time at Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not display my holiness among the sons of Israel,

⁵² you may see this land only from afar; you cannot enter it, this land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.’