Song of Moses

¹ Listen, O heavens, as I speak; hear, earth, the words of my mouth.

² May my teaching be drenching as the rain, and my words, permeate gently as the dew: like abundant rain upon the grass, like a gentle shower on the tender crops.

³ For I will proclaim the name of the Lord and declare the greatness of our God. He is the Rock,

⁴ and perfect are all his works, just are all his ways. A faithful God he is, upright and just and unerring.

⁵ Yet he has been treated perversely by his degenerate children— a deceitful and crooked generation.

⁶ Is this how you repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? He is your father, your creator, who formed you and set you up.

⁷ Recall the days of old, think of the years gone by; your father will teach you about them, your elders will enlighten you.

⁸ When the Most High divided humankind and gave the nations their inheritance, he set up boundaries for the peoples after the number of the sons of God.

⁹ But the Lord keeps for himself his portion Jacob, his chosen one.

¹⁰ In the wilderness he found them, in a barren, howling wasteland; he shielded them and cared for them as the apple of his eye.

¹¹ Like an eagle watching its nest, hovering over its young, supporting them on its spread wings and carrying them on its pinions,

¹² the Lord alone led them, without the aid of a foreign god.

¹³ He made them ride on the heights and live on the produce of the earth. He gave them honey to suck from the rock, olive oil from the hard stony crag,

¹⁴ curds from the herd, milk from the flock, fattened lambs and goats and Bashan bulls, the finest wheat and the best grape wine.

¹⁵ Israel grew up well nourished— you were fat, heavy and overfed. But they abandoned God, their creator; they rejected the rock, their savior.

¹⁶ They made him jealous with their strange gods; they angered him with their abominable deeds.

¹⁷ They sacrificed not to him but to the demons, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods they feared but which their ancestors never revered.

¹⁸ They have disowned the Rock who fathered them; they have forgotten the God who gave them birth.

¹⁹ The Lord saw this, and in his anger rejected his sons and daughters.

²⁰ He said, “I will hide my face from them and see what will become of them. They are so perverse, so unfaithful!

²¹ They made me jealous with their false gods and angered me with their idols. I will, therefore, make them envious of a foolish people, I will provoke them to anger with an empty-headed nation.

²² For my wrath has kindled a fire, burning the world of death to its depths, devouring the earth and its harvests, setting ablaze the foundations of the mountains.

²³ I will send them trouble upon trouble and spend all my arrows upon them;

²⁴ I will afflict them with famine, deadly diseases and pestilence. I will send them wild beasts and venomous snakes.

²⁵ Their children will fall by the sword; terror shall reign within, destroying both young man and virgin, both the nursing child and the old man.

²⁶ I said I would scatter them afar and blot out their memory among human kind,

²⁷ but I feared the enemy’s boasting, lest the adversary misunderstand and say; ‘We have triumphed, the Lord has not brought this about.’

²⁸ They are a senseless and undis cerning nation. Had they wisdom, they would have known

²⁹ the meaning of this and the end awaiting them.

³⁰ For how could one or two men put to flight a thousand or ten thousand, unless their Rock had abandoned them, unless their Lord had given them up?

³¹ Even our enemies understand this: their rock indeed is not like our Rock:

³² They are an offshoot of Sodom’s vine stock, an outgrowth from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are poison, their clusters bitter,

³³ their wine contains venom from the cruel fangs of deadly vipers.

³⁴ I have kept this in reserve and sealed up in my storehouse.

³⁵ Vengeance and recompense is mine. Their feet will slip in due time, their day of calamity is at hand, and swiftly their doom will come.

³⁶ The Lord will give justice to his people and have mercy on his servants, when he sees their strength failing and both slave and free disappearing.

³⁷ He will say, “Where are their gods, the rock they thought could be their refuge,

³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise up now and help you, let them give you protection!

³⁹ Learn this now—that I alone am He; there is no god besides me. It is I who give both death and life; it is I who wound and heal as well and out of my hand no one can deliver.

⁴⁰ I raise my hand to heaven and swear: as truly as I live forever,

⁴¹ when I sharpen my glittering sword and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will deal out vengeance upon my foes and retribution upon those who hate me.

⁴² My arrows will drip with blood, my sword will sink deep into the flesh—blood of the wounded and slain captives, flesh of beheaded enemy leaders.

⁴³ Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will avenge his servants’ blood, take vengeance on his adversaries, and perform the rite of expiation for his people and his land.

⁴⁴ Moses recited the words of this song in the hearing of the people, and Joshua, son of Nun, was with him.

⁴⁵ When Moses had finished reciting these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶ he said to them, “Be attentive to all these words which I declare to you today. Repeat them to your children so that they may take care to put all these laws into practice. ⁴⁷ It is no slight matter: on this de pends your life, and by this, you shall lengthen your days in the land you are going to conquer after crossing the Jordan.”

⁴⁸ Yahweh spoke to Moses on that same day and he said: ⁴⁹ “Go up to the mountains of Abarim in the land of Moab and climb Mount Nebo facing Jericho. From there you shall see the land of Ca naan which I give to the children of Israel. ⁵⁰ Then you shall die on Mount Nebo and join your fathers as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and went to join them. ⁵¹ Remember that you did not trust me at the waters of Meribah in the desert of Zion, when you did not proclaim me be fore the Israelites. ⁵² Therefore you shall not enter the Land, but shall only see it from afar.”