Deuteronomy 31–34

Chapter 31

And Moses went, and spoke all these words to all Israel,

²And he said to them: I am this day a hundred and twenty years old, I can no longer go out and come in, especially as the Lord also hath said to me: Thou shalt not pass over this Jordan.

³The Lord thy God then will pass over before thee: he will destroy all these nations in thy sight, and thou shalt possess them: and this Josue shall go over before thee, as the Lord hath spoken.

⁴And the Lord shall do to them as he did to Sehon and Og the kings of the Amorrhites, and to their land, and shall destroy them.

⁵Therefore when the Lord shall have delivered these also to you, you shall do in like manner to them as I have commanded you.

⁶Do manfully and be of good heart: fear not, nor be ye dismayed at their sight: for the Lord thy God he himself is thy leader, and will not leave thee nor forsake thee.

⁷And Moses called Josue, and said to him before all Israel: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring this people into the land which the Lord swore he would give to their fathers, and thou shalt divide it by lot.

⁸And the Lord who is your leader, he himself 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 carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and to all the ancients of Israel.

¹⁰And he commanded them, saying: After seven years, in the year of remission, in the feast of tabernacles,

¹¹When all Israel come together, to appear in the sight of the Lord thy God in the place which the Lord shall choose, thou shalt read the words of this law before all Israel, in their hearing.

¹²And the people being all assembled together, both men and women, children and strangers, that are within thy gates: that hearing they may learn, and fear the Lord your God, and keep, and fulfil all the words of this law:

¹³That their children also, who now are ignorant, may hear, and fear the Lord their God, all the days that they live in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it.

¹⁴And the Lord said to Moses: Behold the days of thy death are nigh: call Josue, and stand ye in the tabernacle of the testimony, that I may give him a charge. So Moses and Josue went and stood in the tabernacle of the testimony:

¹⁵And the Lord appeared there in the pillar of a cloud, which stood in the entry of the tabernacle.

¹⁶And the Lord said to Moses: Behold thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, and this people rising up will go a fornicating after strange gods in the land, to which it goeth in to dwell: there will they forsake me, and will make void the covenant, which I have made with them,

¹⁷And my wrath shall be kindled against them in that day: and I will forsake them, and will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured: all evils and afflictions shall find them, so that they shall say in that day: In truth it is because God is not with me, that these evils have found me.

¹⁸But I will hide, and cover my face in that day, for all the evils which they have done, because they have followed strange gods.

¹⁹Now therefore write you this canticle, and teach the children of Israel: that they may know it by heart, and sing it by mouth, and this song may be unto me for a testimony among the children of Israel.

²⁰For I will bring them into the land, for which I swore to their fathers, that floweth with milk and honey. And when they have eaten, and are full and fat, they will turn away after strange gods, and will serve them: and will despise me, and make void my covenant.

²¹And after many evils and afflictions shall have come upon them, this canticle shall answer them for a testimony, which no oblivion shall take away out of the mouth of their seed. For I know their thoughts, and what they are about to do this day, before that I bring them into the land which I have promised them.

²²Moses therefore wrote the canticle, and taught it to the children of Israel.

²³And the Lord commanded Josue the son of Nun, and said: Take courage, and be valiant: for thou shalt bring the children of Israel into the land which I have promised, and I will be with thee.

²⁴Therefore after Moses had wrote the words of this law in a volume, and finished it:

²⁵He commanded the Levites, who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying:

²⁶Take this book, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God: that it may be there for a testimony against thee.

²⁷For I know thy obstinacy, and thy most stiff neck. While I am yet living, and going in with you, you have always been rebellious against the Lord: how much more when I shall be dead?

²⁸Gather unto me all the ancients of your tribes, and your doctors, and I will speak these words in their hearing, and will call heaven and earth to witness against them.

²⁹For I know that, after my death, you will do wickedly, and will quickly turn aside from the way that I have commanded you: and evils shall come upon you in the latter times, when you shall do evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him by the works of your hands.

³⁰Moses therefore spoke, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel, the words of this canticle, and finished it even to the end.

Chapter 32

Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to the words of my mouth.

²Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass.

³Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence to our God.

⁴The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right.

⁵They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation.

⁶Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee?

⁷Remember the days of old, think upon every generation: ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders and they will tell thee.

⁸When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel.

⁹But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye.

¹¹As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders.

¹²The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him.

¹³He set him upon high land: that he might eat the fruits of the fields, that he might suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the hardest stone,

¹⁴Butter of the herd, and milk of the sheep with the fat of lambs, and of the rams of the breed of Basan: and goats with the marrow of wheat, and might drink the purest blood of the grape.

¹⁵The beloved grew fat, and kicked: he grew fat, and thick and gross, he forsook God who made him, and departed from God his saviour.

¹⁶They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up to anger, with their abominations.

¹⁷They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not.

¹⁸Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee, and hast forgotten the Lord that created thee.

¹⁹The Lord saw, and was moved to wrath: because his own sons and daughters provoked him.

²⁰And he said: I will hide my face from them, and will consider what their last end shall be: for it is a perverse generation, and unfaithful children.

²¹They have provoked me with that which was no god, and have angered me with their vanities: and I will provoke them with that which is no people, and will vex them with a foolish nation.

²²A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth with her increase, and shall burn the foundations of the mountains.

²³I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows among them.

²⁴They shall be consumed with famine, and birds shall devour them with a most bitter bite: I will send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures that trail upon the ground, and of serpents.

²⁵Without, the sword shall lay them waste, and terror within, both the young man and the virgin, the sucking child with the man in years.

²⁶I said: Where are they? I will make the memory of them to cease from among men.

²⁷But for the wrath of the enemies I have deferred it: lest perhaps their enemies might be proud, and should say: Our mighty hand, and not the Lord, hath done all these things.

²⁸They are a nation without counsel, and without wisdom.

²⁹O that they would be wise and would understand, and would provide for their last end.

³⁰How should one pursue after a thousand, and two chase ten thousand? Was it not, because their God had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?

³¹For our God is not as their gods: our enemies themselves are judges.

³²Their vines are of the vineyard of Sodom, and of the suburbs of Gomorrha: their grapes are grapes of gall, and their clusters most bitter.

³³Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which is incurable.

³⁴Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed up in my treasures?

³⁵Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is at hand, and the time makes haste to come.

³⁶The Lord will judge his people, and will have mercy on his servants: he shall see that their hand is weakened, and that they who were shut up have also failed, and they that remained are consumed.

³⁷And he shall say: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted?

³⁸Of whose victims they ate the fat, and drank the wine of their drink offerings: let them arise and help…