1Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2Let my teaching drop as the rain, let my speech distill as the dew, like showers on the grass and like rain-drops 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 injustice, righteous and upright is he.
5It is not his children who have acted corruptly toward him — theirs is the blemish — a crooked and twisted generation.
6Is this how you repay Yahweh, O foolish and unwise people? Is he not your father who created you, he who made you and established you?
7Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will say to you.
8When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided the sons of man, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
9For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.
10He found him in a desert land, in the waste of a howling wilderness; he encircled him, cared for him, guarded him as the pupil of his eye.
11Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young, he spread out his wings, he took him, he bore him on his pinions.
12Yahweh alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him.
13He made him ride on the heights of the earth, and he ate the produce of the field; he nursed him with honey from the crag and oil from the flinty rock,
14curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs and rams of Bashan and he-goats, with the finest of the kernels of wheat; and of the blood of the grape you drank wine.
15But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked — you grew fat, thick, and gorged — and he abandoned the God who made him, and treated with contempt the Rock of his salvation.
16They made him jealous with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger.
17They sacrificed to demons that are not God, to gods they had not known, new ones that came lately, whom your fathers had not dreaded.
18The Rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19And Yahweh saw it and spurned them, out of vexation at his sons and his daughters.
20And he said, ‘I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be. For they are a perverse generation, children in whom there is no faithfulness.
21They made me jealous with what is no god; they provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with what is no people; with a foolish nation I will provoke them.
22For a fire has been kindled in my anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the earth and its yield, and sets ablaze the foundations of the mountains.
23I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend my arrows against them —
24wasted with hunger, and consumed by burning heat and bitter plague; and the tooth of beasts I will send against them, with the venom of things crawling in the dust.
25Outside the sword bereaves, and inside the chambers terror — both young man and virgin, nursing child with the man of gray hair.
26I said, ‘I would scatter them; I would blot out the memory of them from mankind’ —
27were it not that I dreaded the enemy’s vexation, lest their adversaries misread it, lest they say, ‘Our hand is exalted; it was not Yahweh who did all this.’
28For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
29If only they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern their end.
30How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and Yahweh had handed them over?
31For their rock is not like our Rock — even our enemies are judges of this.
32For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of poison, their clusters are bitter.
33Their wine is the venom of serpents, the cruel poison of cobras.
34Is this not stored up with me, sealed in my treasuries?
35Vengeance is mine, and recompense, for the time when their foot slips; for the day of their calamity is near, and what is destined for them hastens.
36For Yahweh will judge his people and relent concerning his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, neither bond nor free.
37And he will say, ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up and help you; let them be a shelter over you!
39See now that I, I am he, and there is no god beside me. I put to death and I bring to life; I have wounded and I will heal, and there is none who can deliver from my hand.
40For I lift my hand to heaven and declare: As I live forever,
41if I sharpen my flashing sword and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will return vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.
42I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh — with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the enemy.
43Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants; he will return vengeance on his adversaries and make atonement for his land and his people.
44And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea son of Nun.
45When Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel,
46he said to them, ‘Set your heart on all the words that I am testifying against you today, which you shall command your children to keep and to do — all the words of this law.
47For it is not an empty word for you, but it is your life; and by this word you will lengthen your days on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.’
48And Yahweh spoke to Moses on that very day, saying,
49‘Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession.
50And die on the mountain that you are climbing, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people —
51because you were unfaithful to me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribath-Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not treat me as holy among the sons of Israel.
52For from opposite you will see the land, but you will not enter there, into the land that I am giving to the sons of Israel.’
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