Deuteronomy 31–34

31ST CHAPTER

Joshua Becomes Israel’s Leader to Replace Moses

¹Moses continued to speak to all the Israelites: 

²“I’m 120 years old now, and I’m not able to lead you anymore. Besides, the Lord has told me that I cannot cross the Jordan River. ³The Lord your God is the one who will cross the river ahead of you. He will destroy those nations as you arrive, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua will also cross the river ahead of you, as the Lord told you. ⁴The Lord will do to those nations what he did to King Sihon and King Og of the Amorites and to their lands when he destroyed them. ⁵The Lord will hand them over to you, and you must do to them everything that I commanded you. ⁶Be strong and courageous. Don’t tremble! Don’t be afraid of them! The Lord your God is the one who is going with you. He won’t abandon you or leave you.” 

⁷Then Moses called for Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous. You will go with these people into the land that the Lord will give them, as he swore to their ancestors. You will help them take possession of the land.^a8The Lord is the one who is going ahead of you. He will be with you. He won’t abandon you or leave you. So don’t be afraid or terrified.” 

⁹Moses wrote down these teachings and gave them to the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the Lord’s promise and to all the leaders of Israel. ¹⁰Then Moses commanded them, “At the end of every seventh year you must cancel debts. At that time, during the Festival of Booths, ¹¹all the Israelites will come into the presence of the Lord your God at the place he will choose. Read these teachings so that they can hear them. ¹²Assemble the men, women, and children, as well as the foreigners who live in your cities. Have them listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and faithfully obey every word of these teachings. ¹³Their children, who don’t know these teachings, must hear them and learn to fear the Lord your God as long as you live in the land that you are going to take possession of when you cross the Jordan River.” 

¹⁴The Lord said to Moses, “The time of your death is coming soon. Call for Joshua. Both of you come to the tent of meeting, and I will give him his instructions.” Moses and Joshua came to the tent of meeting. ¹⁵Then the Lord appeared in a column of smoke at the entrance to the tent. 

¹⁶The Lord said to Moses, “Soon you are going to lie down in death with your ancestors. When these people enter the land and are living among the foreigners there, they will chase after foreign gods as though they were prostitutes. They will abandon me and reject the promise^bI made to them. ¹⁷On that day I will become angry with them. I will abandon them and turn away from them. They will be destroyed, and many terrible disasters will happen to them. On that day they will ask, ‘Haven’t these disasters happened to us because our God isn’t with us?’ ¹⁸On that day I will certainly turn away from them because of all the evil they’ve done in turning to other gods. 

¹⁹“Write down this song, teach it to the Israelites, and have them sing it. This song will be a witness for me against the Israelites. ²⁰I will bring them into the land that I swore to give to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey. When they have eaten all they want and have become fat,^cthey will turn to other gods and worship them. They will despise me and reject my promise. ²¹When many terrible disasters happen to them, this song will testify against them, because it will never be forgotten by their descendants. I know what their hearts are set on doing, even now before I bring them into the land that I swore to give them.” ²²That day Moses wrote down this song and taught it to the Israelites. 

²³The Lord gave this command to Joshua, son of Nun: “Be strong and courageous, because you will bring the Israelites into the land that I swore to give them, and I will be with you.” 

²⁴Finally, Moses finished writing all the words of these teachings in a book. ²⁵He gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the Lord’s promise: ²⁶“Take this Book of Teachings, and put it next to the ark of the promise of the Lord your God, where it will be a witness against you. ²⁷I know how rebellious you are. You are impossible to deal with. While I am alive and still with you, you are rebelling against the Lord. How much more rebellious will you be after I die? ²⁸Assemble all the leaders of your tribes and your officers in front of me. As they listen, I will speak these words and call on heaven and earth to testify against them. ²⁹I know that after I die you will become thoroughly corrupt and turn from the way I have commanded you to live. In the days to come disasters will happen to you because you will make the Lord furious by doing what he considers evil.” 

The Song of Moses

³⁰Then, as the whole congregation of Israel listened, Moses recited all the words of this song: 

32ND CHAPTER

¹Listen, heaven, and I will speak. 

Earth, hear the words from my mouth. 

²Let my teachings come down like raindrops. 

Let my words drip like dew, 

like gentle rain on grass, 

like showers on green plants. 

³I will proclaim the name of the Lord. 

Give our God the greatness he deserves! 

⁴He is a rock. 

What he does is perfect. 

All his ways are fair. 

He is a faithful God, who does no wrong. 

He is honorable and reliable. 

⁵He recognizes that his people are corrupt. 

To their shame they are no longer his children. 

They are devious and scheming. 

⁶Is this how you repay the Lord, 

you foolish and silly people? 

Isn’t he your Father and Owner, 

who made you and formed you? 

⁷Remember a time long ago. 

Think about all the past generations. 

Ask your fathers to remind you, 

and your leaders to tell you. 

⁸When the Most High gave nations their land, 

when he divided the descendants of Adam, 

he set up borders for the tribes 

corresponding to the number of the sons of Israel. 

⁹But the Lord’s people were his property. 

Jacob was his own possession. 

¹⁰He found his people in a desert land, 

in a barren place where animals howl. 

He guarded them, took care of them, 

and protected them because they were helpless. 

¹¹Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, 

hovers over its young, 

spreads its wings to catch them, 

and carries them on its feathers, 

¹²so the Lord alone led his people. 

No foreign god was with him. 

¹³He made them ride on the heights of the earth 

and fed^athem with the produce of the fields. 

He gave them honey from rocks 

and olive oil from solid rock. 

¹⁴They ate cheese from cows 

and drank milk from sheep and goats. 

He gave them fat from lambs, 

rams from the stock of Bashan, 

male goats, and the best wheat. 

They drank the blood-red wine of grapes. 

¹⁵Jeshurun^bgot fat and disrespectful. 

(You got fat! You were stuffed! You were gorged!) 

They abandoned the God who made them 

and treated the rock of their salvation like a fool. 

¹⁶They made him furious because they worshiped foreign gods 

and angered him because they worshiped worthless idols. 

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons that are not God, 

to gods they never heard of. 

These were new gods, who came from nearby, 

gods your ancestors never worshiped. 

¹⁸(You ignored the rock who fathered you 

and forgot the God who gave you life.) 

¹⁹The Lord saw this and rejected them, 

because his own sons and daughters had made him angry. 

²⁰He said, “I will turn away from them 

and find out what will happen to them. 

They are devious people, 

children who can’t be trusted. 

²¹They made him furious because they worshiped foreign gods 

and angered him because they worshiped worthless idols. 

So I will use those who are not my people to make them jealous 

and a nation of godless fools to make them angry. 

²²My anger has started a fire 

that will burn to the depths of hell. 

It will consume the earth and its crops 

and set the foundations of the mountains on fire. 

²³I will bring one disaster after another on them. 

I will use up all my arrows on them. 

²⁴They will be starved by famines 

and ravaged by pestilence and deadly epidemics. 

I will send vicious animals against them 

along with poisonous animals that crawl on the ground. 

²⁵Foreign wars will kill off their children, 

and even at home there will be horrors. 

Young men and young women alike will die 

as well as nursing babies and gray-haired men. 

²⁶I said that I would cut them in pieces 

and erase everyone’s memory of them. 

²⁷But I didn’t want their enemies to make me angry. 

I didn’t want their opponents to misunderstand and say, 

‘We won this victory! 

It wasn’t the Lord who did all this!’ ” 

²⁸My people have lost their good sense. 

They are not able to understand. 

²⁹If only they were wise enough to understand this 

and realize what will happen to them! 

³⁰How could one person chase a thousand 

or two people make ten thousand flee? 

Their rock used these people to defeat them 

and the Lord gave them no help. 

³¹Their rock isn’t like our rock. 

Even our enemies will agree with this. 

³²Their grapevines come from the vineyards of Sodom 

and from the fields of Gomorrah. 

Their grapes are poisonous, 

and their clusters are bitter. 

³³Their wine is snake venom, 

the deadly poison of cobras. 

³⁴Isn’t this what I’ve stored 

under lock and key in my storehouses? 

³⁵I will take revenge and be satisfied. 

In due time their foot will slip, 

because their day of disaster is near. 

Their doom is coming quickly. 

³⁶The Lord will judge his people 

and have compassion on his servants 

when he sees that their strength is gone 

and that no one is left, neither slaves nor free people. 

³⁷Then he will ask, “Where are their gods? 

Where is the rock they took refuge in? 

³⁸Where are the gods who ate the fat from their sacrifices 

and drank the wine from their wine offerings? 

Let them come to help you! 

Let them be your refuge!” 

³⁹See, I am the only God. 

There are no others. 

I kill, and I make alive. 

I wound, and I heal, 

and no one can rescue you from my power. 

⁴⁰I raise my hand toward heaven and solemnly swear: 

As surely as I live…