32
1 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;
let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 Let my teaching fall like rain, my speech drip like dew, like gentle rain on tender grass and like showers on plants.
3 For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;
ascribe greatness to our God.
4 The Rock—his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he.
5 They have acted corruptly toward him;
because of their blemish they are not his children, a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your father, who acquired you?
He made you and established you.
7 Remember 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.
8 When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.
9 For the LORD’s portion is his people;
Jacob is the allotted share of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a wilderness land, in a waste, a howling desert.
He surrounded him, cared for him, and guarded him as the apple of his eye.
11 Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers 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 on the heights of the earth, and he ate the produce of the field.
He made him suck honey from the crag and oil from the flinty rock,
14 curds from cattle and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, rams of Bashan, and male goats, with the choicest wheat;
and you drank wine, the blood of the grape.
15 But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.
You grew fat, you grew thick, you became covered with fat.
He forsook the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
16 They provoked him to jealousy with foreign gods;
they provoked him to anger with abominations.
17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, new ones that had recently come, whom your fathers had not feared.
18 You neglected the Rock who begot you and forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 The LORD saw and rejected them because of the provocation of his sons and daughters.
20 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.
21 They have provoked me to jealousy with what is not God;
they have provoked me to anger with their worthless idols.
I will provoke them to jealousy with what is not a people;
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in my anger and burns to the depths of Sheol.
It devours the earth and its produce and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap calamities upon them;
I will spend my arrows on them.
24 They shall be wasted by hunger, devoured by burning fever and bitter pestilence.
I will send against them the teeth of beasts, with the venom of creatures crawling in the dust.
25 Outside the sword shall bring bereavement, and inside the rooms, terror, for young man and virgin alike, for the nursing infant and the gray-haired man.
26 I would have said, “I will scatter them;
I will make their memory cease from among mankind,”
27 had I not feared the enemy’s provocation, lest their adversaries misunderstand, lest they say, “Our hand is high;
the LORD has not done all this.” ’
28 For they are a nation bereft of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
29 If only they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern their end.
30 How could one chase a thousand and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them and the LORD had given them over?
31 For their rock is not like our Rock;
even our enemies are judges.
32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are grapes of poison;
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 in my treasuries?
35 Vengeance and recompense are mine for the time when their foot slips, for the day of their calamity is near, and what awaits them hastens.’
36 For the LORD will judge his people and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone and none remain, confined or free.
37 He will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38 which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them arise and help you;
let them be a shelter over you.
39 See now that I, 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 no one can deliver from my hand.
40 For I lift my hand to heaven and say, “I live forever:
41 if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will repay my adversaries with vengeance and repay those who hate me.
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and captives, from the long-haired heads of the enemy.” ’
43 Acclaim his people, O nations, for he will avenge the blood of his servants, repay his adversaries with vengeance, 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 When Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel, 46 he said to them, “Set your hearts on all the words with which I testify against you today, which you shall command your children to keep and do, all the words of this law. 47 For it is no empty word for you, but your life, and by this word you shall prolong your days on the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
48 The LORD spoke to Moses that very day, saying, 49 “Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan, which I am giving the Israelites as a possession. 50 Die on the mountain you are going up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people, 51 because you were unfaithful to me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not show my holiness among the Israelites. 52 For you shall see the land from a distance, but you shall not enter there, into the land I am giving the Israelites.”