Deuteronomy 32:8-52 ▼

8 When the Most High gave their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples by the number of the sons of God.

9 For YHWH's portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

10 He found him in a desert land, and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

11 As an eagle stirs up his nest, he hovers over his young, he spreads his wings, he takes him, he carries him upon his pinions,

12 YHWH alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

13 He made him ride on the heights of the earth, that he might eat the fruits of the field. And He made him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock,

14 curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the sons of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and of the blood of the grape you drank wine.

15 And Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—you grew fat, you grew thick, you gorged—and he forsook God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

16 They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods; with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known. New ones—from the vicinity they came—that your? fathers did not fear.

18 The Rock who brought you forth you neglected, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.

19 And YHWH saw it, and He spurned them, from the provocation of His sons and His daughters.

20 And He said, “I will hide My face from them, I shall see what is their end; for a perverse generation are they, sons in whom is no faithfulness.

21 They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. And I will provoke them to jealousy by those not a people; by a foolish nation I will anger them.

22 For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, and it shall consume the earth and its yield, and scorch the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will heap upon them disasters; My arrows I will spend on them:

24 Wasted by famine and devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction; and the teeth of beasts I will send against them, with the poison of fearful things of the dust.

25 Outside the sword will bereave, and inside shall be terror for the young man and virgin, the nursing child with the man of gray hairs.

26 I said I would dash them in pieces, I would remove their memory from among men,

27 if I had not feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, lest they should say, ‘Our hand is high, and it is not YHWH who has done all this.’”

28 For they are a nation void of counsel, and in them there is no understanding.

29 If only they were wise, that they understood this, they would consider their latter end!

30 How does one pursue a thousand, and two put to flight a myriad, if not that their Rock had sold them and YHWH had surrendered them?

31 For their rock is not like our Rock, and our enemies themselves are judges.

32 For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.

33 The poison of serpents is their wine, and the cruel venom of cobras.

34 “Is not this laid up with Me, sealed up among My treasures?

35 Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In time their foot shall slip, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things to come upon them hurry.”

36 For YHWH will judge His people, and on His servants have compassion, when He sees that the power is gone, and there is no one, slave or free.

37 And He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

38 that ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise and help you? and be for you? a shelter.

39 See now that I—I am He—and there is no God besides Me; I kill and I give life, I wound and I heal, and from My hand none can deliver.

40 For I lift up My hand to the heavens and say, as I live forever,

41 if I have sharpened the brightness of My sword, and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will turn back vengeance to My enemies and those who hate Me I will repay.

42 I will make drunk My arrows with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.”

43 Rejoice, O heavens, with Him,

and let all God’s angels worship Him., Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for the blood of His children He will avenge, and vengeance He will return on His adversaries

and He will repay those who hate Him, and He will provide atonement for His land—His people.

44 And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people—he and Joshua son of Nun.

45 And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

46 and He said to them, “Set your? hearts on all the words that I testify among you? today, which you? shall command your? sons to be careful to do—all the words of this law.

47 For it is not a futile thing for you?, because it is your? life, and by this word you? shall prolong days in the land that there you? are passing over the Jordan to possess it.”

48 And YHWH spoke to Moses this same day, saying,

49 “Go up into this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, which is across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I give to the sons of Israel as a possession.

50 And die on the mountain that you ascend, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

51 upon that you? trespassed against Me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, upon that you? did not sanctify Me in the midst of the sons of Israel.

52 Yet from a distance you shall see the land, and there you shall not go into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.”