| 32:1 | Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. |
| 32:2 | My teaching will drop like the rain, my sayings will drip like the dew,* as rain drops upon the grass, and showers upon new growth. |
| 32:3 | For I will proclaim the name* of the Lord; you must acknowledge the greatness of our God. |
| 32:4 | As for the Rock,* his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He is a reliable God who is never unjust, he is fair* and upright. |
| 32:5 | His people have been unfaithful* to him; they have not acted like his children* – this is their sin.* They are a perverse* and deceitful generation. |
| 32:6 | Is this how you repay* the Lord, you foolish, unwise people? Is he not your father, your creator? He has made you and established you. |
| 32:7 | Remember the ancient days; bear in mind* the years of past generations.* Ask your father and he will inform you, your elders, and they will tell you. |
| 32:8 | When the Most High* gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided up humankind,* he set the boundaries of the peoples, according to the number of the heavenly assembly.* |
| 32:9 | For the Lord’s allotment is his people, Jacob is his special possession.* |
| 32:10 | The Lord* found him* in a desolate land, in an empty wasteland where animals howl.* He continually guarded him* and taught him;* he continually protected him* like the pupil* of his eye. |
| 32:11 | Like an eagle that stirs up* its nest, that hovers over its young, so the Lord* spread out his wings and took him,* he lifted him up on his pinions. |
| 32:12 | The Lord alone was guiding him,* no foreign god was with him. |
| 32:13 | He enabled him* to travel over the high terrain of the land, and he ate of the produce of the fields. He provided honey for him from the cliffs,* and olive oil* from the hardest of* rocks,* |
| 32:14 | butter from the herd and milk from the flock, along with the fat of lambs, rams and goats of Bashan, along with the best of the kernels of wheat; and from the juice of grapes you drank wine. |
| 32:15 | But Jeshurun* became fat and kicked, you* got fat, thick, and stuffed! Then he deserted the God who made him, and treated the Rock who saved him with contempt. |
| 32:16 | They made him jealous with other gods,* they enraged him with abhorrent idols.* |
| 32:17 | They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known; to new gods who had recently come along, gods your ancestors* had not known about. |
| 32:18 | You have forgotten* the Rock who fathered you, and put out of mind the God who gave you birth. |
| 32:19 | But the Lord took note and despised them because his sons and daughters enraged him. |
| 32:20 | He said, “I will reject them,* I will see what will happen to them; for they are a perverse generation, children* who show no loyalty. |
| 32:21 | They have made me jealous* with false gods,* enraging me with their worthless gods;* so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize,* with a nation slow to learn* I will enrage them. |
| 32:22 | For a fire has been kindled by my anger, and it burns to lowest Sheol;* it consumes the earth and its produce, and ignites the foundations of the mountains. |
| 32:23 | I will increase their* disasters, I will use up my arrows on them. |
| 32:24 | They will be starved by famine, eaten by plague, and bitterly stung;* I will send the teeth of wild animals against them, along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust. |
| 32:25 | The sword will make people childless outside, and terror will do so inside; they will destroy* both the young man and the virgin, the infant and the gray-haired man. |
| 32:26 | “I said, ‘I want to cut them in pieces.* I want to make people forget they ever existed. |
| 32:27 | But I fear the reaction* of their enemies, for* their adversaries would misunderstand and say, “Our power is great,* and the Lord has not done all this!”’ |
| 32:28 | They are a nation devoid of wisdom, and there is no understanding among them. |
| 32:29 | I wish that they were wise and could understand this, and that they could comprehend what will happen to them.” |
| 32:30 | How can one man chase a thousand of them,* and two pursue ten thousand; unless their Rock had delivered them up,* and the Lord had handed them over? |
| 32:31 | For our enemies’* rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede. |
| 32:32 | For their vine is from the stock* of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah.* Their grapes contain venom, their clusters of grapes are bitter. |
| 32:33 | Their wine is snakes’ poison, the deadly venom of cobras. |
| 32:34 | “Is this not stored up with me?” says the Lord,* “Is it not sealed up in my storehouses? |
| 32:35 | I will get revenge and pay them back at the time their foot slips; for the day of their disaster is near, and the impending judgment* is rushing upon them!” |
| 32:36 | The Lord will judge his people, and will change his plans concerning* his servants; when he sees that their power has disappeared, and that no one is left, whether confined or set free. |
| 32:37 | He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock in whom they sought security, |
| 32:38 | who ate the best of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise and help you; let them be your refuge! |
| 32:39 | “See now that I, indeed I, am he!” says the Lord,* “and there is no other god besides me. I kill and give life, I smash and I heal, and none can resist* my power. |
| 32:40 | For I raise up my hand to heaven, and say, ‘As surely as I live forever, |
| 32:41 | I will sharpen my lightning-like sword, and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment;* I will execute vengeance on my foes, and repay those who hate me!* |
| 32:42 | I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh – the blood of the slaughtered and captured, the chief* of the enemy’s leaders!’” |
| 32:43 | Cry out, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge his servants’ blood; he will take vengeance against his enemies, and make atonement for his land and people. |
| 32:44 | Then Moses went with Joshua* son of Nun and recited all the words of this song to the people. |
| 32:45 | When Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel |
| 32:46 | he said to them, “Keep in mind all the words I am solemnly proclaiming to you today; you must command your children to observe carefully all the words of this law. |
| 32:47 | For this is no idle word for you – it is your life! By this word you will live a long time in the land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.” |
| 32:48 | Then the Lord said to Moses that same day, |
| 32:49 | “Go up to this Abarim* hill country, to Mount Nebo (which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho*) and look at the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Israelites as a possession. |
| 32:50 | You will die* on the mountain that you ascend and join your deceased ancestors,* just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor* and joined his deceased ancestors, |
| 32:51 | for both of you* rebelled against me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribah Kadesh in the desert of Zin when you did not show me proper respect* among the Israelites. |
| 32:52 | You will see the land before you, but you will not enter the land that I am giving to the Israelites.” |
Deuteronomy 32 - NET Bible [draft]
