Deuteronomy 32
The Rock Whose Work Is Perfect
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Cosmic Introduction
32:1Pay attention, heaven, and I will speak; let the earth hear words from my mouth.
32:2Let my utterance be awaited like rain, and let my words descend like dew, like a rainstorm on grass and a snowstorm on vegetation.
32:3For I proclaimed the Lord’s name; ascribe majesty to our God.
The Character of God vs. The Character of Israel
32:4God—His works are true, and all His ways are judgments. A faithful God, with no injustice; righteous and holy is the Lord.
32:5Blemished children, not His own, have sinned—a crooked and twisted generation.
32:6Is this how you repay the Lord, foolish and unwise people? Did He not, your father Himself, acquire you, make you, and create you?
Remembrance of God’s Historical Provision
32:7Remember days of old; understand the years of generation after generation. Ask your father, and he will report to you; your elders, and they will tell you.
32:8When the Most High apportioned the nations, when He scattered Adam’s sons, He established the nations’ boundaries according to the number of God’s angels.
32:9His people Jacob became the Lord’s portion; Israel, His measured inheritance.
32:10He sustained him in a wilderness land, in scorching thirst, in a waterless place. He encircled and instructed him and guarded him like the pupil of an eye.
32:11Like an eagle sheltering its nest and yearning over its young, He spread His wings, received them, and carried them on His back.
32:12The Lord alone led them; no foreign god was with them.
32:13He brought them up onto the earth’s strength and fed them the fields’ produce. They sucked honey from rock and oil from solid stone,
32:14butter from cattle and milk from sheep, with fat of lambs and rams, young bulls and goats, with the fat of wheat’s kernels; they drank wine, the grape’s blood.
Israel’s Apostasy and Rebellion
32:15Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked. He grew fat, thick, and broad. He abandoned God who made him and departed from God his Savior.
32:16They provoked Me with foreign gods; with their abominations they embittered Me.
32:17They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they did not know.
New, recent ones arrived, whom their fathers did not know.
32:18You abandoned the God who begat you and forgot the God who nourishes you.
The Divine Decree of Judgment
32:19The Lord saw and became jealous, and was provoked by His sons’ and daughters’ anger.
32:20He said: I will turn My face from them and show what will happen to them in the last days, for they are a perverted generation, sons with no faithfulness.
32:21They made Me jealous with what is no god and angered Me with their idols. I will make them jealous with what is no nation and anger them with a nation without understanding.
32:22A fire kindled from My wrath will burn to Hades below, consume the earth and its produce, and ignite the mountains’ foundations.
32:23I will gather calamities against them and spend My missiles against them.
32:24Wasting with hunger, devoured by birds, and struck by incurable backward-bending spasms, they will face the teeth of wild animals I send against them, with the fury of creatures crawling on the ground.
32:25Outside the sword will bereave them, and from the inner chambers terror—young man with virgin, nursing child with aged elder.
32:26I said: I will scatter them, end their remembrance among humanity,
32:27were it not for the enemies’ anger, lest they persist long and the adversaries join in attacking, lest they say, Our hand is exalted; the Lord did not do all this.
Reflection on Israel’s Foolishness
32:28For it is a nation that has lost counsel, with no knowledge in them.
32:29They did not understand these things wisely; let them take them to heart for the coming time.
32:30How could one pursue a thousand and two dislodge tens of thousands unless God sold them and the Lord handed them over?
32:31Their gods are not like our God; our enemies lack understanding.
32:32Their vine comes from Sodom’s vine, and their tendril from Gomorrah. Their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster bitter.
32:33Their wine is dragons’ venom, the incurable venom of asps.
Divine Vengeance, Vindication, and Redemption
32:34Look, are these things not gathered with Me, sealed in My treasuries?
32:35On a day of vengeance I will repay, when their foot slips. Their day of destruction is near, and prepared things are at hand for you.
32:36The Lord will judge His people and be moved concerning His servants, for He saw them weakened, failing under assault, and exhausted.
32:37The Lord said: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted,
32:38whose sacrifices’ fat you ate and whose drink offerings’ wine you drank? Let them rise and help you; let them become your protectors.
32:39See, see that I am; there is no god except Me. I will put to death and make alive; I will strike, and I will heal. No one rescues from My hands.
32:40I will lift My hand to heaven, swear by My right hand, and declare: I live forever.
32:41For I will sharpen My sword like lightning, and My hand will hold to judgment. I will repay justice to the enemies and repay those who hate Me.
32:42I will make My missiles drunk with blood, and My sword will consume flesh—the blood of the slain and captivity, from the heads of enemy rulers.
32:43Rejoice, heavens, with Him; let all God’s sons worship Him. Rejoice, nations, with His people; let all God’s angels give Him strength. He avenges His sons’ blood, will exact vengeance and repay a penalty to the enemies, and will repay those who hate Him. The Lord will thoroughly cleanse His people’s land.
The Conclusion of the Song
32:44Moses wrote this song that day and taught it to Israel’s sons. Moses came and spoke all this law’s words in the people’s hearing, he and Joshua son of Nun.
32:45Moses finished speaking to all Israel.
32:46He said: Attend with your heart to all these words I testify to you today. Command your children to keep and perform all the words of this law.
32:47This is no empty word for you; this is your life. Through this word you will live long on the land you are crossing the Jordan to inherit.
God Summons Moses to His Death
32:48That day the Lord spoke to Moses:
32:49Ascend this mountain of Abarim, Mount Nebo in Moab opposite Jericho, and see the land of Canaan that I am giving Israel’s sons as a possession.
32:50Die on the mountain you ascend and be added to your people, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was added to his people,
32:51because you disobeyed My word among Israel’s sons at the water of dispute at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, failing to uphold My holiness among Israel’s sons.
32:52You will see the land from a distance, but you will not enter there.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.