Deuteronomy

32

1 Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth.

2 Let my speech be looked for as the rain, and my words come down as dew, as the shower upon the herbage, and as snow upon the grass.

3 For I have called on the name of the Lord: assign ye greatness to our God.

4 As for God, his works are true, and all his ways are *judgment: God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him; just and holy is the Lord.

5 They have sinned, not pleasing him; spotted children, a froward and perverse generation.

6 Do ye thus recompense the Lord? is the people thus foolish and unwise? did not he himself thy father purchase thee, and make thee, and form thee?

7 Remember the days of old, consider the years †for past ages: ask thy father, and he shall relate to thee, thine elders, and they shall tell thee.

8 When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.

9 And his people Jacob became the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance.

10 He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry land: he led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of an eye.

11 As an eagle would watch over his brood, and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings, and takes them up on his back:

12 the Lord alone led them, there was no strange god with them.

13 He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock.

14 Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank wine, the blood of the grape.

15 So Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked; he grew fat, he became thick and broad: then he forsook the God that made him, and departed from God his Saviour.

16 They provoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me.

17 They sacrificed to devils, and not to God; to gods whom they knew not: new and fresh gods came in, whom their fathers knew not.

18 Thou hast forsaken God that begot thee, and forgotten God who feeds thee.

19 And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters,

20 and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what shall happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faith.

21 ✡ They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have exasperated me with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding.

22 For a fire has been kindled out of my wrath, it shall burn to hell below; it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it; it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

23 I will gather evils upon them, and will ‡fight with my weapons against them.

24 They shall be consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds, and there shall be irremediable §destruction: I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the rage of serpents creeping on the ground.

25 Without, the sword shall bereave them of children, and terror shall issue out of the secret chambers; the young man shall perish with the virgin, the suckling with him who has grown old.

26 I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from among men.

27 Were it not for the wrath of the enemy, lest they should live long, lest their enemies should combine against them; lest they should say, Our own high arm, and not the Lord, has done all these things.

28 It is a nation that has lost counsel, neither is there understanding in them.

29 They had not sense to understand: let them reserve these things against the time to come.

30 How **should one pursue a thousand, and two rout tens of thousands, if God had not sold them, and the Lord delivered them up?

31 For their gods are not as our God, but our enemies are void of understanding.

32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vine-branch of Gomorrha: their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster is one of bitterness.

33 Their wine is the rage of serpents, and the incurable rage of asps.

34 Lo! are not these things stored up by me, and sealed among my treasures?

35 In the day of vengeance ✡ I will recompense, whensoever their foot shall be tripped up; for the day of their destruction is near to them, and the judgments at hand are close upon you.

36 For the Lord shall judge his people, and shall be comforted over his servants; for he saw that they were ††utterly weakened, and failed in the hostile invasion, and were become feeble:

37 and the Lord said, Where are their gods on whom they trusted?

38 the fat of whose sacrifices ye ate, and ye drank the wine of their drink-offerings? let them arise and help you, and be your protectors.

39 Behold, behold that I am he, and there is no god beside me: I kill, and I will make to live: I will smite, and I will heal; and there is none who shall deliver out of my hands.