Deuteronomy 32

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

²May my teaching drop as the rain , my speech distill as the dew , like gentle rain upon the tender grass , and like showers upon the herb .

³For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God !

⁴The Rock , his work is perfect , for all his ways are justice . A God of faithfulness and without iniquity , just and upright is he.

⁵They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished ; they are a crooked and twisted generation .

⁶Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people ? Is not he your father , who created you, who made you and established you?

⁷Remember 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.

⁸When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance , when he divided mankind , he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God .

⁹But the Lord ’s portion is his people , Jacob his allotted heritage .

¹⁰He found him in a desert land , and in the howling waste of the wilderness ; he encircled him, he cared for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye .

¹¹Like an eagle that stirs up its nest , that flutters over its young , spreading out its wings , catching them, bearing them on its pinions ,

¹²the Lord alone guided him, no foreign god was with him.

¹³He made him ride on the high places of the land , and he ate the produce of the field , and he suckled him with honey out of the rock , and oil out of the flinty rock .

¹⁴Curds from the herd , and milk from the flock , with fat of lambs , rams of Bashan and goats , with the very finest of the wheat — and you drank foaming wine made from the blood of the grape .

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat , and kicked ; you grew fat , stout , and sleek ; then he forsook God who made him and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation .

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

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons that were no gods , to gods they had never known , to new gods that had come recently , whom your fathers had never dreaded .

¹⁸You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you, and you forgot the God who gave you birth .

¹⁹The Lord saw it and spurned them, because of the provocation of his sons and his 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 is no faithfulness .

²¹They have made me jealous with what is no god ; they have provoked me to anger with their idols . So I will make them jealous with those who are no people ; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation .

²²For a fire is kindled by my anger , and it burns to the depths of Sheol , devours the earth and its increase , and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains .

²³And I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows on them;

²⁴they shall be wasted with hunger , and devoured by plague and poisonous pestilence ; I will send the teeth of beasts against them, with the venom of things that crawl in the dust .

²⁵Outdoors the sword shall bereave , and indoors terror , for young man and woman alike , the nursing child with the man of gray hairs .

²⁶I would have said , I will cut them to pieces ; I will wipe them from human memory ,

²⁷had I not feared provocation by the enemy , lest their adversaries should misunderstand , lest they should say , Our hand is triumphant , it was not the Lord who did all this .

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

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

³⁰How could one have chased a thousand , and two have put ten thousand to flight , unless their Rock had sold them , and the Lord had given them up ?

³¹For their rock is not as our Rock ; our enemies are by themselves .

³²For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah ; their grapes are grapes of poison ; their clusters are bitter ;

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

³⁴Is not this laid up in store with me, sealed up in my treasuries ?

³⁵Vengeance is mine, and recompense , for the time when their foot shall slip ; for the day of their calamity is at hand , and their doom comes swiftly .

³⁶For the Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants , when he sees that their power is gone and there is none remaining, bond or free .

³⁷Then 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 offering ? Let them rise up and help you; let them be your protection !

³⁹See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive ; I wound and I heal ; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand .

⁴⁰For I lift up my hand to heaven and swear , As I live forever ,

⁴¹if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold on judgment , I will take vengeance on my adversaries and will repay those who hate me.

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

⁴³Rejoice with him, O heavens ; bow down to him, all gods, for he avenges the blood of his children and takes vengeance on his adversaries . He repays those who hate him and cleanses his people’s land .

⁴⁴Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people , he and Joshua the son of Nun .

⁴⁵And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel ,

⁴⁶he said to them, Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today , that you may command them to your children , that they may be careful to do all the words of this law .

⁴⁷For it is no empty word for you, but your very life , and by this word you shall live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess .

⁴⁸That very day the Lord spoke to Moses ,

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

⁵⁰And die on the mountain which you go up , and be gathered to your people , as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people ,

⁵¹because you broke faith with me in the midst of the people of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh , in the wilderness of Zin , and because you did not treat me as holy in the midst of the people of Israel .

⁵²For you shall see the land before you, but you shall not go there , into the land that I am giving to the people of Israel .