1Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2My teaching will fall like the rain, my words will settle like the dew, like light rain on the tender plants, and like showers on the grass.
3For I will make known the name of the LORD. Give greatness to our God.
4He is the Rock, and his work is perfect, for all his ways are just. He is a God of truth and without wrong; he is upright and right.
5They have corrupted themselves; their stain is not the stain of his children. They are a twisted and crooked generation.
6Is this how you pay back the LORD, O foolish people without wisdom? Is he not your father, who bought you? Did he not make you and set you firm?
7Remember the days of long ago; think about the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; ask your elders, and they will tell you.
8When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the borders of the peoples by the number of the children of Israel.
9For the LORD's portion is his people; Jacob is the share of his inheritance.
10He found him in a desert land, in an empty, howling wilderness. He led him about, he taught him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11As an eagle stirs up her nest and flutters over her young, spreading out her wings, taking them, carrying them on her wings,
12so the LORD alone led him, and there was no strange god with him.
13He made him ride on the high places of the earth, so that he could eat what the fields produced. He made him take honey out of the rock, and oil out of the hard rock,
14butter from cows, and milk from sheep, with the fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of wheat. And you drank the pure blood of the grape.
15But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, you grew thick, you were covered with fat. Then he left the God who made him, and thought little of the Rock of his salvation.
16They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with things he hates they stirred him to anger.
17They sacrificed to devils, not to God; to gods they did not know, to new gods that had lately come, which your fathers did not fear.
18You gave no thought to the Rock who was your father, and you forgot the God who formed you.
19And when the LORD saw it, he hated them, because his sons and his daughters had provoked him.
20And he said, "I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be. For they are a very stubborn generation, children who have no faith."
21"They have stirred me to jealousy with what is not God; they have stirred me to anger with their empty idols. So I will stir them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation."
22"For a fire is lit in my anger, and it will burn to the lowest hell. It will consume the earth and all it produces, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains."
23"I will heap troubles upon them; I will spend my arrows on them."
24"They will be burnt up with hunger, and eaten up with burning heat and bitter destruction. I will also send the teeth of wild beasts against them, with the poison of snakes of the dust."
25"The sword outside, and terror inside, will destroy both the young man and the young woman, the nursing baby and the man with gray hair."
26"I said I would scatter them into far corners; I would make people stop remembering them."
27"But I feared the anger of the enemy, in case their foes should misunderstand, and say, 'Our own hand is high, and the LORD has not done all this.'"
28For they are a nation with no good counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
29If only they were wise, and understood this, and would consider what their end will be.
30How could one man chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had given them up?
31For their rock is not like our Rock; even our enemies themselves say so.
32For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are bitter grapes; their clusters are bitter.
33Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of snakes.
34Is this not stored up with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35Vengeance is mine, and repayment. Their foot will slip at the right time, for the day of their disaster is near, and the things coming on them are hurrying.
36For the LORD will judge his people, and have pity on his servants, when he sees that their strength is gone, and no one is left, shut up or free.
37And he will say, "Where are their gods, the rock they trusted in,"
38"which ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let them 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. And no one can rescue anyone out of my hand."
40"For I lift up my hand to heaven and say, I live for ever."
41"If I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will pay back vengeance to my enemies, and repay those who hate me."
42"I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh: with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the first of my vengeance on the enemy."
43Rejoice, O nations, with his people. For he will avenge the blood of his servants, and pay back vengeance to his foes, and be merciful to his land and to his people.
44And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song so the people heard them, he and Hoshea the son of Nun.
45And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel.
46And he said to them, "Take to heart all the words I declare to you today. You must command your children to keep and do them, all the words of this law."
47"For it is not an empty thing for you; it is your life. By this thing you will live long in the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess."
48And the LORD spoke to Moses that same day, saying,
49"Go up into this mountain Abarim, to mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho. Look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel to possess."
50"And die on the mountain you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on mount Hor and was gathered to his people."
51"This is because you broke faith with me among the children of Israel at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, and because you did not honour me as holy among the children of Israel."
52"You will see the land in front of you, but you will not go there, into the land I am giving the children of Israel."