Deuteronomy 32–34

Chapter 32

¹“Give 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 distil as the dew,

as the gentle rain upon the tender grass,

and as the showers upon the herb.

³For I will proclaim the name of the Lord.

Ascribe greatness to our God!

⁴“The Rock, his work is perfect;

for all his ways are justice.

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,

just and right is he.

⁵They have dealt corruptly with him,

they are no longer his children because of their blemish;

they are a perverse and crooked generation.

⁶Do you thus requite 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 separated the sons of men,

he fixed the bounds of the peoples

according to the number of the sons of God.

⁹For the Lord’s portion is his people,

Jacob his allotted heritage.

¹⁰“He 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 did lead him,

and there was no foreign god 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 rock,

and oil out of the flinty rock.

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

with fat of lambs and rams,

herds of Bashan and goats,

with the finest of the wheat—

and of the blood of the grape you drank wine.

¹⁵“But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked;

you waxed fat, you grew thick, you became 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 abominable practices they provoked him to anger.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons which were no gods,

to gods they had never known,

to new gods that had come in of late,

whom your fathers had never dreaded.

¹⁸You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you,

and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹“The 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 stirred me to jealousy with what is no god;

they have provoked me with their idols.

So I will stir them to jealousy with those who are no people;

I will provoke them 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.

²³“ ‘And I will heap evils upon them;

I will spend my arrows upon them;

²⁴they shall be wasted with hunger,

and devoured with burning heat

and poisonous pestilence;

and I will send the teeth of beasts against them,

with venom of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵In the open the sword shall bereave,

and in the chambers shall be terror,

destroying both young man and virgin,

the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶I would have said, “I will scatter them afar,

I will make the remembrance of them cease from among men,”

²⁷had I not feared provocation by the enemy,

lest their adversaries should judge amiss,

lest they should say, “Our hand is triumphant,

the Lord has not wrought all this.” ’

²⁸“For 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 should one chase a thousand,

and two 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,

even our enemies themselves being judges.

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.

³⁴“Is 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!

³⁹“ ‘See 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 for ever,

⁴¹if I whet my glittering sword,

and my hand takes hold on judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries,

and will requite 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.’

⁴³“Praise his people, O you nations;

for he avenges the blood of his servants,

and takes vengeance on his adversaries,

and makes expiation for the land of his people.”

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, “Lay to heart all the words which I enjoin upon you this day, 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 trifle for you, but it is your life, and thereby you shall live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess.”

⁴⁸And the Lord said to Moses that very day, ⁴⁹“Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho; and view the land of Canaan, which I give to the people of Israel for a possession; ⁵⁰and die on the mountain which you ascend, 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 Meri-bath-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you did not revere 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 which I give to the people of Israel.”

Chapter 33

¹This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death. ²He said,

“The Lord came from Sinai,

and dawned from Seir upon us;

he shone forth from Mount Paran,

he came from the ten thousands of holy ones,

with flaming fire at his right hand.

³Yea, he loved his people;

all those consecrated to him were in his hand;

so they followed in thy steps,

receiving direction from thee,

⁴when Moses commanded us a law,

as a possession for the assembly of Jacob.

⁵Thus the Lord became king in Jeshurun,

when the heads of the people were gathered,

all the tribes of Israel together.

⁶“Let Reuben live, and not die,

nor let his men be few.”

⁷And this he said of Judah:

“Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah,

and bring him in to his people.

With thy hands contend for him,

and be a help against his adversaries.”

⁸And of Levi he said,

“Give to Levi thy Thummim,

and thy Urim to thy godly one,

whom thou didst test at Massah,

with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah;

⁹who said of his father and mother,

‘I regard them not’;

he disowned his brothers,

and ignored his children.

For they observed thy word,

and kept thy covenant.

¹⁰They shall teach Jacob thy ordinances,

and Israel thy law;

they shall put incense before thee,

and whole burnt offering upon thy altar.

¹¹Bless, O Lord, his substance,

and accept the work of his hands;

crush the loins of his adversaries,

of those that hate him, that they rise not again.”

¹²Of Benjamin he said,

“The beloved of the Lord,

he dwells in safety by him;

he encompasses him all the day long,

and makes his dwelling between his shoulders.”

¹³And of Joseph he said,

“Blessed by the Lord be his land,

with the choicest gifts of heaven above,

and of the deep that couches beneath,

¹⁴with the choicest 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 best gifts of the earth and its fulness,

and the favor of him that dwelt in the bush.

Let these come upon the head of Joseph,

and upon the crown of the head of him that is prince among his brothers.

¹⁷His firstling bull has majesty,

and his horns are the horns of a wild ox;

with them he shall push the peoples,

all of them, to the ends of the earth;

such are the ten thousands of Ephraim,

and such are the thousands of Manasseh.”

¹⁸And of Zebulun he said,

“Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out;

and Issachar, in your tents.

¹⁹They shall call peoples to their mountain;

there they offer right sacrifices;

for they suck the affluence of the seas

and the hidden treasures of the sand.”

²⁰And of Gad he said,

“Blessed be he who enlarges Gad!

Gad couches like a lion,

he tears the arm, and the crown of the head.

²¹He chose the best of the land for himself,

for there a commander’s portion was reserved;

and he came to the heads of the people,

with Israel he executed the commands

and just decrees of the Lord.”

²²And of Dan he said,

“Dan is a lion’s whelp,

that leaps forth from Bashan.”

²³And of Naphtali he said,

“O Naphtali, satisfied with favor,

and full of the blessing of the Lord,

possess the lake and the south.”

²⁴And of Asher he…