Deuteronomy 32
1Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2My teaching shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3Because I will proclaim the name of the LORD: ascribe you greatness unto our God.
4He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are justice: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
5They have corrupted themselves, their blemish is not the blemish of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
6Do you thus repay the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he your father that has bought you? has he not 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 divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
9For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10He found him in a desert land, and in the wasteland of the howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11As an eagle stirs up its nest, flutters over its young, spreads abroad its wings, takes them, bears them on its wings:
12So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
13He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
14Curds of the cattle, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you did drink the pure blood of the grape.
15But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: you are grown fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger.
17They sacrificed unto demons, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came in of late, whom your fathers feared not.
18Of the Rock that begat you you are unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you.
19And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20And he said,
I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faith.
21They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with its increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23I will heap evils upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them.
24They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of animals upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25The sword outside, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the nursing child also with the man of gray hairs.
26I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, and lest they should say, Our hand has triumphed, and the LORD has not done all this.
28For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except 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 is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps.
34Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35To me belongs vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36For the LORD shall judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none left, slave or free.
37And he shall say,
Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38Who did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
39See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god besides me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
40For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, As I live forever.
41If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.
43Rejoice, O you nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
44And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Joshua the son of Nun.
45And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel:
46And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.
47For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, which you go over Jordan to possess.
48And the LORD spoke unto Moses that very same day, saying,
49Get you up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is opposite Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:
50And die in the mount which you go up, and be gathered unto your people; as Aaron your brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:
51Because you trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you hallowed me not in the midst of the children of Israel.
52Yet you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there unto the land which I give the children of Israel.
Commentaries for Deuteronomy 32:0