The Song of Moses

(Judges 5:1-31)

1Hear, 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 you, and protect you in your distress.

39See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike, and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

40I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live for ever.

41If I shall whet my sword as the lightning, and my hand take hold on judgment: I will render vengeance to my enemies, and repay them that hate me.

42I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, of the blood of the slain and of the captivity, of the bare head of the enemies.

43Praise his people, ye nations, for he will revenge the blood of his servants: and will render vengeance to their enemies, and he will be merciful to the land of his people.

44So Moses came and spoke all the words of this canticle in the ears of the people, and Josue the son of Nun. 45And he ended all these words, speaking to all Israel. 46And he said to them: Set your hearts on all the words, which I testify to you this day: which you shall command your children to observe and to do, and to fulfil all that is written in this law: 47For they are not commanded you in vain, but that every one should live in them, and that doing them you may continue a long time in the land whither you are going over the Jordan to possess it.

Moses' Death Foretold

48And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying: 49Go up into this mountain Abarim, (that is to say, of passages,) unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho: and see the land of Chanaan, which I will deliver to the children of Israel to possess, and die thou in the mountain. 50When thou art gone up into it thou shalt be gathered to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his people: 51Because you trespassed against me in the midst of the children of Israel, at the waters of contradiction, in Cades of the desert of Sin: and you did not sanctify me among the children of Israel. 52Thou shalt see the land before thee, which I will give to the children of Israel, but thou shalt not enter into it.