Deuteronomy 31–34

Chapter 31

¹And Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel; ²and he said unto them, I am a hundred and twenty years old this day, I can no more go out and come in; and Jehovah hath said unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan. ³Jehovah thy God, he will go over before thee, he will destroy these nations from before thee, that thou mayest take possession of them: Joshua, he shall go over before thee, as Jehovah hath said. ⁴And Jehovah will do to them as he did to Sihon and to Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land; whom he destroyed. ⁵And when Jehovah giveth them up before you, ye shall do to them according to all the commandment which I have commanded you. ⁶Be strong and courageous, fear them not, neither be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God, he it is that goeth with thee; he will not leave thee, nor forsake thee. ⁷And Moses called to Joshua, and said to him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and courageous, for thou must go with this people into the land which Jehovah hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. ⁸And Jehovah, he it is that goeth before thee: he will be with thee; he will not leave thee, nor forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.

⁹And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and to all the elders of Israel. ¹⁰And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, at the set time of the year of release, at the feast of tabernacles, ¹¹when all Israel cometh to appear before Jehovah thy God in the place which he will choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their ears. ¹²Gather the people together, the men, and the women, and the children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear Jehovah your God, and take heed to do all the words of this law; ¹³and that their children who do not know it may hear it and learn, that they may fear Jehovah your God, as long as ye live in the land, whereunto ye pass over the Jordan to possess it.

¹⁴And Jehovah said to Moses, Lo, the days are near for thee to die; call Joshua, and present yourselves at the tent of meeting, that I may give him a charge. And Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves at the tent of meeting. ¹⁵And Jehovah appeared at the tent in the pillar of cloud; and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance to the tent. ¹⁶And Jehovah said to Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the strange gods of the land into which they enter, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them. ¹⁷And my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, and they will say in that day, Have not these evils befallen me because my God is not in my midst? ¹⁸And I will entirely hide my face in that day for all the evils that they have wrought, because they turned unto other gods. ¹⁹And now, write ye this song, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel. ²⁰For I shall bring them into the land which I swore unto their fathers, which floweth with milk and honey; and they will eat and fill themselves, and wax fat, and will turn unto other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant. ²¹And it shall come to pass, when many evils and troubles have befallen them, that this song shall testify against them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed; for I know their imagination which they are forming already this day, before I bring them into the land which I have sworn unto them.

²²And Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the children of Israel. ²³And Jehovah commanded Joshua the son of Nun, and said, Be strong and courageous; for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I have sworn unto them; and I will be with thee. ²⁴And it came to pass, when Moses had ended writing the words of this law in a book, until their conclusion, ²⁵that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, saying, ²⁶Take this book of the law, and put it at the side of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee; ²⁷for I know thy rebellion, and thy stiff neck. Lo, while I am yet alive with you this day, ye have been rebellious against Jehovah; and how much more after my death! ²⁸Gather to me all the elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears, and take heaven and earth to witness against them. ²⁹For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt yourselves, and will turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and mischief will befall you at the end of days; because ye do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands. ³⁰And Moses spoke in the ears of the whole congregation of Israel the words of this song, until their conclusion.

Chapter 32

¹Give ear, ye heavens, and I will speak; And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth! ²My doctrine shall drop as rain, My speech flow down as dew, As small rain upon the tender herb, And as showers on the grass. ³For the name of Jehovah will I proclaim: Ascribe greatness unto our God! ⁴He is the Rock, his work is perfect, For all his ways are righteousness; A •God of faithfulness without deceit, Just and right is he. ⁵They have dealt corruptly with him; Not his children’s is their spot: —A crooked and perverted generation! ⁶Do ye thus requite Jehovah, Foolish and unwise people? Is not he thy father that hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee and established thee?

⁷Remember the days of old, Consider the years of generation to generation; Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; Thine elders, and they will tell thee. ⁸When the Most High assigned to the nations their inheritance, When he separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the peoples According to the number of the children of Israel. ⁹For Jehovah’s portion is his people; Jacob the lot of his inheritance. ¹⁰He found him in a desert land, And in the waste, howling wilderness; He compassed him about, he watched over him, He preserved him as the apple of his eye. ¹¹As the eagle stirreth up its nest, Hovereth over its young, Spreadeth out its wings, Taketh them, beareth them on its feathers, ¹²So Jehovah alone did lead him, And no strange •god was with him. ¹³He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And he made him suck honey out of the crag, And oil out of the flinty rock; ¹⁴Cream of kine, and milk of sheep, With the fat of lambs, And rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, With the fat of kidneys of wheat; And thou didst drink pure wine, the blood of the grape.

¹⁵Then Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked—Thou art waxen fat, Thou art grown thick, And thou art covered with fatness; —He gave up †God who made him, And lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. ¹⁶They moved him to jealousy with strange gods, With abominations did they provoke him to anger. ¹⁷They sacrificed unto demons who are not †God; To gods whom they knew not, To new ones, who came newly up, Whom your fathers revered not. ¹⁸Of the Rock that begot thee wast thou unmindful, And thou hast forgotten •God who brought thee forth.

¹⁹And Jehovah saw it, and despised them, Because of the provoking of his sons and of his daughters. ²⁰And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be; For they are a perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness. ²¹They have moved me to jealousy with that which is no •God; They have exasperated me with their vanities; And I will move them to jealousy with that which is not a people; With a foolish nation will I provoke them to anger. ²²For a fire is kindled in mine anger, And it shall burn into the lowest Sheol, And shall consume the earth and its produce, And set fire to the foundations of the mountains. ²³I will heap mischiefs upon them; Mine arrows will I spend against them. ²⁴They shall be consumed with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, And with poisonous pestilence; And the teeth of beasts will I send against them, With the poison of what crawleth in the dust. ²⁵From without shall the sword bereave them, and in the chambers, terror—Both the young man and the virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶I would say, I will scatter, I will make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, ²⁷If I did not fear provocation from the enemy, Lest their adversaries should misunderstand it, Lest they should say, Our hand is high, and Jehovah has not done all this. ²⁸For they are a nation void of counsel, And understanding is not in them. ²⁹Oh that they had been wise! they would have understood this, They would have considered their latter end! ³⁰How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Were it not that their Rock had sold them, And Jehovah had delivered them up? ³¹For their rock is not as our Rock: Let our enemies themselves be judges. ³²For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of poison, Bitter are their clusters; ³³Their wine is the poison of dragons, And the cruel venom of vipers. ³⁴Is not this hidden with me, Sealed up among my treasures? ³⁵Vengeance is mine, and recompense, For the time when their foot shall slip. For the day of their calamity is at hand, And the things that shall come upon them make haste. ³⁶For Jehovah will judge his people, And shall repent in favour of his servants; When he seeth that power is gone, And there is none shut up or left. ³⁷And he shall say, Where are their gods, Their rock in…