Deuteronomy 32–34

³²“Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;

let the earth hear the words of my mouth.^*

²May my teaching drop like the rain,

my speech condense like the dew,

like gentle rain on grass,

like showers on new growth.^*

³For I will proclaim the name of the Lord,

ascribe greatness to our God!^*

⁴The Rock, his work is perfect,

and all his ways are just.

A faithful God, without deceit,

just and upright is he;^*

⁵yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,^r

a perverse and crooked generation.^*

⁶Do you thus repay the Lord,

O 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 long past;

ask your father, and he will inform you,

your elders, and they will tell you.^*

⁸When the Most High^s apportioned the nations,

when he divided humankind,

he fixed the boundaries of the peoples

according to the number of the gods;^t*

⁹the Lord’s own portion was his people,

Jacob his allotted share.^*

¹⁰He sustained^u him in a desert land,

in a howling wilderness waste;

he shielded him, cared for him,

guarded him as the apple of his eye.^*

¹¹As an eagle stirs up its nest

and hovers over its young,

as it spreads its wings, takes them up,

and bears them aloft on its pinions,^*

¹²the Lord alone guided him;

no foreign god was with him.^*

¹³He set him atop the heights of the land

and fed him with^v produce of the field;

he nursed him with honey from the crags,

with oil from flinty rock,^*

¹⁴curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,

with fat of lambs and rams,

Bashan bulls and goats,

together with the choicest wheat—

you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.^*

¹⁵Jacob ate his fill;^w

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.

You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!

He abandoned God who made him

and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.^*

¹⁶They made him jealous with strange gods;

with abhorrent things they provoked him.^*

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not God,

to deities they had never known,

to new ones recently arrived,

whom your ancestors had not feared.^*

¹⁸You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;^x

you forgot the God who gave you birth.^*

¹⁹The Lord saw it and was jealous;^y

he spurned^z his sons and daughters.^*

²⁰He 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.^*

²¹They made me jealous with what is no god,

provoked me with their idols.

So I will make them jealous with what is no people,

provoke them with a foolish nation.^*

²²For a fire is kindled by my anger

and burns to the depths of Sheol;

it devours the earth and its increase

and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.^*

²³I will heap disasters upon them,

spend my arrows against them:^*

²⁴wasting hunger,

burning consumption,

bitter pestilence.

The teeth of beasts I will send against them,

with venom of things crawling in the dust.^*

²⁵In the street the sword shall bereave,

and in the chambers terror

for young man and woman alike,

nursing child and old gray head.^*

²⁶I said, “I will make an end of them^a

and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”^*

²⁷but I feared provocation by the enemy,

for their adversaries might misunderstand

and say, “Our hand is triumphant;

it was not the Lord who did all this.” ’^*

²⁸They are a nation void of sense;

there is no understanding in them.

²⁹If they were wise, they would understand this;

they would discern what their end would be.^*

³⁰How could one have routed a thousand

and two put a myriad to flight,

unless their Rock had sold them,

the Lord had given them up?^*

³¹Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock;

our enemies are fools.^b*

³²Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,

from the vineyards of Gomorrah;

their grapes are grapes of poison;

their clusters are bitter;

³³their wine is the poison of serpents,

the cruel venom of asps.^*

³⁴Is not this laid up in store with me,

sealed up in my treasuries,^*

³⁵for the day of vengeance^c and recompense,

for the time when their foot shall slip?

Because the day of their calamity is at hand;

their doom comes swiftly.^*

³⁶Indeed, the Lord will vindicate his people,

have compassion on his servants,

when he sees that their power is gone,

neither bond nor free remaining.^*

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 libations?

Let them rise up and help you;

let them be your protection!

³⁹See now that I, even I, am he;

there is no god besides me.

I kill, and I make alive;

I wound, and I heal;

and no one can deliver from my hand.^*

⁴⁰For I lift up my hand to heaven

and swear, As I live forever,

⁴¹when I whet 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 enemy.’^*

⁴³Praise, O heavens,^d his people;

worship him, all you gods!^e

For he will avenge the blood of his children^f

and take vengeance on his adversaries;

he will repay those who hate him^g

and cleanse the land for his people.”^h*

⁴⁴Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshuaⁱ son of Nun. ⁴⁵When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶he said to them, “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law.^{* 47}This is no trifling matter for you but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”^*

Moses’s Death Foretold

⁴⁸On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows: ⁴⁹“Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession;^{* 50}you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin, ⁵¹because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites.^{* 52}Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it, the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”^*

Moses’s Final Blessing on Israel

³³This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before his death.^{* 2}He said,

“The Lord came from Sinai

and dawned from Seir upon us;^j

he shone forth from Mount Paran.

With him were myriads of holy ones,^k

at his right, a host of his own.^l*

³Indeed, O favorite among^m peoples,

all his holy ones were in your charge;

they marched at your heels,

accepted direction from you.^*

⁴Moses charged us with the law

as a possession for the assembly of Jacob.^*

⁵There arose a king in Jeshurun

when the leaders of the people assembled,

the united tribes of Israel.

⁶May Reuben live and not die out,

even though his numbers are few.”

⁷And this he said of Judah,

“O Lord, give heed to Judah,

and bring him to his people;

strengthen his hands for him,ⁿ

and be a help against his adversaries.”^*

⁸And of Levi he said,

“Give to Levi^o your Thummim

and your Urim to your loyal one,

whom you tested at Massah,

with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah,^*

⁹who said of his father and mother,

‘I regard them not’;

he ignored his kin

and did not acknowledge his children.

For they observed your word

and kept your covenant.^*

¹⁰They teach Jacob your ordinances

and Israel your law;

they place incense before you

and whole burnt offerings on your altar.^*

¹¹Bless, O Lord, his substance,

and accept the work of his hands;

crush the loins of his adversaries,

of those who hate him, so that they do not rise again.”^*

¹²Of Benjamin he said,

“The beloved of the Lord rests in safety—

the Most High^p surrounds him all day long—

and he rests between his shoulders.”

¹³And of Joseph he said,

“Blessed by the Lord be his land,

with the choice gifts of heaven above

and of the deep that lies beneath,^*

¹⁴with the choice fruits of the sun

and the rich yield of the months,

¹⁵with the finest produce of the ancient mountains

and the abundance of the everlasting hills,^*

¹⁶with the choice gifts of the earth and its fullness

and the favor of the one who dwells on Sinai.^q

Let these come on the head of Joseph,

on the brow of the prince among his brothers.^*

¹⁷A firstborn^r bull—majesty is his!

His horns are the horns of a wild ox;

with them he gores the peoples

all together to the ends of the earth;

such are the myriads of Ephraim,

such the thousands of Manasseh.”^*

¹⁸And of Zebulun he said,

“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out,

and Issachar, in your tents.^*

¹⁹They call peoples to the mountain;

there they offer the right sacrifices,

for they suck the affluence of the seas

and the hidden treasures of the sand.”^*

²⁰And of Gad he said,

“Blessed be the enlargement of Gad!

Like a lion he lives;

he tears at arm and scalp.^*

²¹He chose the best for himself,

for there a commander’s allotment was reserved;

he came at the head of the people;

he executed the justice of the Lord

and his ordinances with Israel.”^*

²²And of Dan he said,

“Dan is a lion’s whelp

that leaps forth from Bashan.”^*

²³And of Naphtali he said,

“O Naphtali, sated with favor,

full of the blessing of the Lord,

possess the west and the south.”^*

²⁴And of Asher he said,

“Most blessed of sons be Asher;

may he be the favorite of his brothers,

and may he dip his foot in oil.^*

²⁵Your bars are iron and bronze,

and as your days, so is your strength.^s*

²⁶There is none like God, O Jeshurun,

who rides through the heavens to your help,

majestic through the clouds.^*

²⁷He subdues the ancient gods,^t

shatters^u the forces of old;^v

he drove out the enemy before you

and said, ‘Destroy!’^*

²⁸So Israel lives in…