1 Earth and Sky,
listen to what I say!
2 Israel, I will teach you.
My words will be like gentle rain
on tender young plants,
or like dew on the grass.
3 Join with me in praising
the wonderful name
of the Lord our God.
4 The Lord is a mighty rock,
and he never does wrong.
God can always be trusted
to bring justice.
5 But you lie and cheat
and are unfaithful to him.
You have disgraced yourselves
and are no longer worthy
to be his children.
6 Israel, the Lord is your Father,
the one who created you,
but you repaid him
by being foolish.
7 Think about past generations.
Ask your parents
or any of your elders.
They will tell you
8 that God Most High
gave land to every nation.
He assigned a guardian angel
to each of them,
9 but the Lord himself
takes care of Israel.
10 Israel, the Lord discovered you
in a barren desert
filled with howling winds.
God became your fortress,
protecting you as though
you were his own eyes.
11 The Lord was like an eagle
teaching its young to fly,
always ready to swoop down
and catch them on its back.
12 Israel, the Lord led you,
and without the aid
of a foreign god,
13 he helped you
capture the land.
Your fields were rich
with grain.
Olive trees grew
in your stony soil,
and honey was found
among the rocks.
14 Your flocks and herds
produced milk and yogurt,
and you got choice meat
from your sheep and goats
that grazed in Bashan.
Your wheat was the finest,
and you drank the best wine.
15 Israel, you grew fat and rebelled
against God, your Creator
you rejected the Mighty Rock,
your only place of safety.
16 You made God jealous and angry
by worshiping disgusting idols
and foreign gods.
17 You offered sacrifices
to demons, those useless gods
that never helped you,
new gods that your ancestors
never worshiped.
18 You turned away
from God, your Creator;
you forgot the Mighty Rock,
the source of your life.
19 You were the Lord's children,
but you made him angry.
Then he rejected you 20 and said,
“You are unfaithful
and can't be trusted.
So I won't answer your prayers;
I'll just watch and see
what happens to you.
21 You worshiped worthless idols,
and made me jealous
and angry!
Now I will send a cruel
and worthless nation
to make you jealous and angry.
22 “My people, I will breathe out fire
that sends you down
to the world of the dead.
It will scorch your farmlands
and burn deep down
under the mountains.
23 I'll send disaster after disaster
to strike you like arrows.
24 You'll be struck by starvation
and deadly diseases,
by the fangs of wild animals
and poisonous snakes.
25 Young and old alike
will be killed in the streets
and terrified at home.
26 “I wanted to scatter you,
so no one would remember
that you had ever lived.
27 But I dreaded the sound
of your enemies saying,
‘We defeated Israel with no help
from the Lord.’ ”
28 People of Israel,
that's what the Lord
has said to you.
But you don't have good sense,
and you never listen
to advice.
29 If you did, you could see
where you are headed.
30 How could one enemy soldier
chase a thousand
of Israel's troops?
Or how could two of theirs
pursue ten thousand of ours?
It can only happen if the Lord
stops protecting Israel
and lets the enemy win.
31 Even our enemies know
that only our God
is a Mighty Rock.
32 Our enemies are grapevines
rooted in the fields
of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The grapes they produce
are full of bitter poison;
33 their wine is more deadly
than cobra venom.
34 But the Lord has written
a list of their sins
and locked it in his vault.
35 Soon our enemies will get
what they deserve —
suddenly they will slip,
and total disaster
will quickly follow.
36 When only a few
of the Lord's people remain,
when their strength is gone,
and some of them are slaves,
the Lord will feel sorry for them
and give them justice.
37 But first the Lord will say,
“You ran for safety to other gods—
couldn't they help you?
38 You offered them wine
and your best sacrifices.
Can't those gods help you now
or give you protection?
39 Don't you understand?
I am the only God;
there are no others.
I am the one who takes life
and gives it again.
I punished you with suffering.
But now I will heal you,
and nothing can stop me!
40 “I make this solemn promise:
Just as I live forever,
41 I will take revenge
on my hateful enemies.
I will sharpen my sword
and let it flash
like lightning.
42 My arrows will get drunk
on enemy blood;
my sword will taste the flesh
and the blood of the enemy.
It will kill prisoners,
and cut off the heads
of their leaders.”
43 Tell the heavens to celebrate
and all gods to bow down
to the Lord,
because he will take revenge
on those hateful enemies
who killed his people.
He will forgive the sins of Israel
and purify their land.
44-45 Moses spoke the words of the song so that all the Israelites could hear, and Joshua helped him. When Moses had finished, 46 he said, “Always remember this song I have taught you today. And let it be a warning that you must teach your children to obey everything written in The Book of God's Law. 47 The Law isn't empty words. It can give you a long life in the land that you are going to take.”
Moses Will See the Land
48 Later that day the Lord said to Moses:
49 Go up into the Abarim Mountain range here in Moab across the Jordan River valley from Jericho. And when you reach the top of Mount Nebo, you will be able to see the land of Canaan, which I am giving to Israel. 50 Then you will die and be buried on the mountaintop, just as your brother Aaron died and was buried on Mount Hor. 51 Both of you were unfaithful to me at Meribah Spring near Kadesh in the Zin Desert. I am God, but there in front of the Israelites, you did not treat me with the honor and respect I deserve. 52 So I will give the land to the people of Israel, but you will only get to see it from a distance.
1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. 2 My doctrine 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: 3 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. 4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he. 5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. 6 Do ye thus requite the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7 ¶ Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. 8 When 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. 9 For the LORD’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. 10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. 11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: 12 So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. 13 He 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; 14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
15 ¶ But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. 16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods , with abominations provoked they him to anger. 17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not. 18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
19 And when the LORD saw it , he abhorred them , because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters. 20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith. 21 They 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 which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. 22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. 23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. 24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust. 25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men: 27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the LORD hath not done all this. 28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. 29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! 30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? 31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. 32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: 33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps. 34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures? 35 To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; 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. 36 For the LORD shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left. 37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, 38 Which 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.
39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand. 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever. 41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me. 42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy. 43 Rejoice, O ye 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.
44 ¶ And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun. 45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel: 46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. 47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it. 48 And the LORD spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying, 49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession: 50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people: 51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel. 52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.