¹“Give ear, O heaven,

And let me speak.

And hear, O earth,

The words of my mouth.

²My instruction will condense like rain

– My discourse will distil like dew –

Like showers on grass

And like fine rain on herbage,

³For I will proclaim the name of the Lord.

Attribute greatness to our God!

⁴He is the rock;

His work is perfect,

For all his ways

Are justice itself.

A God of faithfulness

And without iniquity,

Righteous and upright

Is he.

⁵A perverse and crooked generation

Has corrupted itself.

With their blemish,

They are not his sons.

⁶Do you recompense the Lord with this,

O foolish and unwise people?

Is not he your father,

Who purchased you?

– The one who made you

And fashioned you?

⁷Remember the days of old;

Discern the years

Of generation after generation.

Ask your father,

And let him inform you

– Your elders,

And let them tell you –

⁸Of when the Most High gave the nations their inheritance,

Of when he separated the sons of Adam

And appointed the borders of the various peoples

According to the number of the sons of Israel.

⁹For the portion of the Lord is his people.

Jacob is the legacy of his inheritance.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land

And in the howling desolation of a wasteland.

He encircled him and instructed him;

He guarded him as the apple of his eye,

¹¹As an eagle stirs up its nest

And flutters over its young

And spreads its wings

And takes them

And carries them on its pinion.

¹²The Lord alone leads him,

And there is no foreign god with him.

¹³He made him ride on the heights of the earth,

And he ate the produce of the field,

And he gave him honey

To suck from the rock,

And oil from the flinty outcrop,

¹⁴And butter from cattle,

And milk from sheep,

With the fat of fatted lambs,

And rams of the Bashan breed,

And goats with fat,

And choice wheat.

And from the juice of the grape

One may drink wine.

¹⁵But Jeshurun became fat and recalcitrant

– You became fat, you became indifferent;

You became apathetic.

And he forsook God

Who made him,

And he despised

The rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They provoked him to jealousy

With foreign customs.

They provoked him to anger

With abominations.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons,

– Not to God –

To gods that they had not known

– New ones that had recently arrived –

Whom your fathers never reverenced.

¹⁸You became oblivious to the rock

That begot you,

And you forgot the God

Who brought you forth.

¹⁹And the Lord saw it

And despised it

Because of the provocation to anger

Of his sons and daughters.

²⁰And he said,

‘I will hide my face from them;

I will see what their final state is,

For they are a generation of perversities

– Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.

²¹They have provoked me to jealousy

With that which is not God.

They have provoked me to anger

With their idols.

²²For a fire has been kindled in my anger,

And it is burning

Down to the lower underworld,

And it will consume

The earth and its produce,

And it will ignite

The foundations of mountains.

²³I will heap evils on them;

I will expend my arrows on them.

²⁴When they are exhausted by famine

And consumed by inflammation

And a bitter pestilence,

I will send against them the tooth of beasts

With the venom of the reptiles of the dust.

²⁵Out of doors the sword

And indoors terror

Will bereave them

– Both the young man and the young maiden,

And the baby

With the grey-haired old man.

²⁶I would have said

That I would blow them away;

I would have made the memory of them

Cease among mankind,

²⁷Except that I feared the provocation of the enemy,

That their adversaries would mistake the situation

– That they would say,

«Our power is great

And it is not the Lord

Who did all this.»

²⁸For they are a people devoid of counsel,

And there is no understanding among them.’

²⁹If only they would become wise

And prudent in this respect,

That they would understand their final state.

³⁰How can one pursue a thousand

And two put ten thousand to flight,

If it is not that their rock has sold them,

And that the Lord has delivered them up?

³¹For their rock

Is not like our rock,

Even our enemies

Are judges of that.

³²For their vine is a vine from Sodom

And from blasted vineyards of Gomorrah.

Their grapes are grapes of hemlock.

Grape-bunches of bitter taste

Are what they have.

³³Their wine is venom from serpents

And cruel poison from vipers.

³⁴Is it not laid up in store with me,

Sealed up in my treasuries?

³⁵Vengeance and retribution are mine.

Their foot will totter in due course,

For the day of their calamity is near,

And their future hastens on.

³⁶For the Lord will judge his people,

And he will have compassion on his servants,

For he will see that their power has gone,

And that they are nothing but shut in

And abandoned.

³⁷And he will say,

‘Where are their gods

– The rock in which they trusted –

³⁸Their gods who consumed the fat of their sacrifices

And drank the wine of their libations?

Let them arise and help you;

Let there be protection over you.’

³⁹See now that I myself am he,

And there is no god with me.

I put to death, and I give life.

I dash to pieces, and I heal,

And there is no-one

Who delivers from my hand.

⁴⁰For I have raised my hand to heaven,

And I have stated

That I live age-abidingly.

⁴¹If I sharpen my glittering sword,

And my hand takes hold of it in judgment,

I will take vengeance on my adversaries,

And I will repay those who hate me.

⁴²I will make my arrows

Drunk with blood,

And my sword will consume flesh

With the blood of the slain,

And of captives,

And from the chief of the leaders of the enemy.

⁴³Shout for joy,

O nations and his people,

For he will avenge

The blood of his servants,

And he will retribute vengeance

On his adversaries,

And he will reconcile his land,

And his people.”

⁴⁴Then Moses came and spoke all the words of this song with the people hearing – he and Joshua the son of Nun. ⁴⁵And Moses finished speaking all these words to the whole of Israel. ⁴⁶And he said to them, “Be attentive to all the words which I am testifying to you today, in that you shall command your sons to ensure to carry out all the words of this law. ⁴⁷For it is not a trivial matter for you, for it is your life, and by this matter you will prolong your days on the land which you are crossing the Jordan to go to, so as to take possession of it.” ⁴⁸And the Lord spoke to Moses on this same day and said, ⁴⁹“Go to this Mount Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, which is opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan which I am giving the sons of Israel as a possession, ⁵⁰and die on the mountain which you are going up to, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor, and he was gathered to his people, ⁵¹because you dealt treacherously with me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the Desert of Zin, because you did not sanctify me among the sons of Israel. ⁵²So you will see the land ahead, but you will not go there, to the land which I am giving the sons of Israel.

Reference(s) in Chapter 32: v.17 ↔ 1 Corinthians 10:20 ● v.21 ↔ Romans 10:19 ● v.35 ↔ Romans 12:19, Hebrews 10:30 ● v.36 ↔ Hebrews 10:30 ● v.43 ↔ Romans 15:10, Revelation 19:2, Hebrews 1:6.