Chapter 32

¹Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak;

Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

²My doctrine shall drop as the rain;

My speech shall condense as the dew,

As the small rain on the tender grass,

As the showers on the herb.

³For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh:

Ascribe greatness to our God.

⁴The 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 not his children, it is their blemish;

They are a perverse and crooked generation.

⁶Do you thus requite Yahweh,

Foolish people and unwise?

Isn’t he your father who has bought you?

He has 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 children of men,

He set the bounds of the peoples

According to the number of the children of Israel.

⁹For Yahweh’s portion is his people;

Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land,

In the waste howling wilderness;

He compassed him about, he cared for him,

He kept him as the apple of his eye.

¹¹As an eagle that stirs up her nest,

That flutters over her young,

He spread abroad his wings, he took them,

He bore them on his feathers.

¹²Yahweh alone did lead him,

There was no foreign god with him.

¹³He made him ride on the high places of the earth,

He ate the increase of the field;

He made him to suck honey out of the rock,

Oil out of the flinty rock;

¹⁴Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock,

With fat of lambs,

Rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,

With the finest of the wheat;

Of the blood of the grape you drank wine.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked:

You have grown fat, you are grown thick, you are become sleek;

Then he forsook God who made him,

Lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They moved him to jealousy with strange gods;

With abominations provoked they him to anger.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, which were no God,

To gods that they didn’t know,

To new gods that came up of late,

Which your fathers didn’t dread.

¹⁸Of the Rock that became your father, you are unmindful,

Have forgotten God who gave you birth.

¹⁹Yahweh saw it, and abhorred them,

Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.

²⁰He 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 faithfulness.

²¹They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God;

They have provoked me to anger with their vanities:

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,

Burns to the lowest Sheol,

Devours the earth with its increase,

Sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³I will heap evils on them;

I will spend my arrows on them:

²⁴They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat

Bitter destruction;

The teeth of animals will I send on them,

With the poison of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵Outside shall the sword bereave,

In the chambers terror;

It shall destroy both young man and virgin,

The suckling with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶I said, I would scatter them afar,

I would make the memory of them to cease from among men;

²⁷Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy,

Lest their adversaries should judge wrongly,

Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted,

Yahweh has not done all this.

²⁸For they are a nation void of counsel,

There is no understanding in them.

²⁹Oh that they were wise, that they understood this,

That they would consider their latter end!

³⁰How should one chase a thousand,

Two put ten thousand to flight,

Except their Rock had sold them,

Yahweh had delivered 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,

Of the fields of Gomorrah:

Their grapes are grapes of gall,

Their clusters are bitter:

³³Their wine is the poison of serpents,

The cruel venom of asps.

³⁴Isn’t this laid up in store with me,

Sealed up among my treasures?

³⁵Vengeance is mine, and recompense,

At the time when their foot shall slide:

For the day of their calamity is at hand,

The things that are to come on them shall make haste.

³⁶For Yahweh will judge his people,

Repent himself for his servants;

When he sees that their power is gone,

There is none remaining, shut up or left at large.

³⁷He will say, Where are their gods,

The rock in which they took refuge;

³⁸Which 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.

³⁹See now that I, even I, am he,

There is no god with me:

I kill, and I make alive;

I wound, and I heal;

There is none who 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,

My hand take hold on judgment;

I will render vengeance to my adversaries,

Will recompense those who hate me.

⁴²I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

My sword shall devour flesh;

With the blood of the slain and the captives,

From the head of the leaders of the enemy.

⁴³Rejoice, you nations, with his people:

For he will avenge the blood of his servants,

Will render vengeance to his adversaries,

Will make expiation for his land, for his people.

⁴⁴Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Nun. ⁴⁵Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel; ⁴⁶He said to them, Set your heart to all the words which I testify to you this day, which you shall command your children to observe to do, even all the words of this law. ⁴⁷For it is no vain thing for you; because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over the Jordan to possess it. ⁴⁸Yahweh spoke to Moses that same day, saying, ⁴⁹Go up into this mountain of Abarim, to Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and see the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel for a possession; ⁵⁰and die on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on 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 Meribah of Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because you didn’t sanctify me in the midst of the children of Israel. ⁵²For you shall see the land before you; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the children of Israel.