1 »Give ear, O physical heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

2 »My instruction shall drop as the rain; my words shall descend like dew, as the gentle rains on the tender plant, and as the showers on vegetation.

3 »I will proclaim the name of Jehovah and ascribe greatness to our God.

4 »He is the Rock! His work is perfect. For all His ways are just. He is a God of faithfulness and without evil. He is just and upright.

5 »They have corrupted themselves; they are not His sons. They are a blemished, crooked and perverse generation.

6 »Is this how you repay Jehovah, you foolish and unwise people? Is he not your Father and creator, who made you and formed you?

7 »Remember the days of old. Think about all the past generations. Ask your fathers to remind you, and your elders to tell you.

8 »When the Most High gave nations their inheritance, when he divided the descendants of Adam, he set up borders for the tribes corresponding to the number of the sons of Israel.

9 »Jehovah’s people were his property. Jacob was God’s own possession.

10 »He found his people in a desert land, in a barren place where animals howl. He guarded them, took care of them, and protected them because they were the precious apple pupil of his eye.

11 »Like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, spreads its wings to catch them, and carries them on its wings,

12 »Jehovah alone led his people. No foreign god was with them.

13 »He made him ride on the heights of the earth and fed him with the produce of the fields. He gave him honey from rocks and olive oil from solid rock.

14 »He ate cheese from cows and drank milk from sheep and goats. He gave them fat the best from the flock from lambs, rams from the stock of Bashan, male goats, and the best wheat. He drank the blood-red wine of grapes.

15 »Jeshurun Israel grew fat and disrespectful. You got fat! You were stuffed! You over eat! He abandoned the God who made him and scornfully treated the rock of his salvation.

16 »They made God furious because they worshiped foreign gods and angered him stirred up his zeal because they worshiped worthless idols.

17 »They sacrificed to demons that are not God. They served gods they did not know. These were new gods who came from nearby, gods your ancestors never worshiped.

18 »You ignored the rock that fathered you and forgot the God who gave you life.

19 »Jehovah saw this and rejected them. His own sons and daughters made him angry.

20 »He said: ‘I will turn away from them and find out what will happen to them. They are a devious and perverse generation. They are children who have no faith.

21 »They made him furious because they worshiped foreign gods. They angered him because they worshiped worthless idols. So I will use those who are not my people to make them jealous and a nation of godless fools to make them angry.

22 My anger has started a fire that will burn into the depths of the grave. It will consume the earth and its crops and set the foundations of the mountains on fire.

23 »I will heap distress on them! I will use my arrows on them.

24 »They will be wasted by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter destruction. I will send teeth of wild animals on them, with the venom of crawling things reptiles of the dust.

25 »Outside the sword will bereave. Inside terror shall destroy both young man and virgin, babies and old man with gray hair.

26 »I would have said: ‘I will cut them to pieces. I will remove the memory of them from men.’

27 »I did not want their enemies to make me angry. I did not want their opponents to misunderstand and say: We won this victory! Jehovah did not do all this!

28 »My people have lost their good sense. They do not understand.

29 They fail to see why they were defeated. They cannot understand what happened.

30 »Why were a thousand defeated by one? Why ten thousand by only two? Jehovah their God abandoned them! Their mighty God gave them up.

31 »Their rock is not like our rock! Their enemies know that their own gods are weak, not mighty like Israel's God.

32 »Their vine is like the vine of Sodom. Their fields are like Gomorrah. Their grapes are grapes of anger. Their clusters are bitter.

33 »Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps cobras.

34 »Is this not laid up in store with me and sealed up among my treasures?

35 »Vengeance and retribution belong to me. Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Their foot shall slide in time, for the day of their calamity is at hand. The things to come on them come quickly.

36 »Jehovah will bring his people justice. He will have compassion on his servants. He sees that their power is gone, and only the imprisoned and abandoned remain.

37 »He will say: ‘Where are their gods, the rock in which they sought refuge?

38 »Who ate the fat of their sacrifices? Who drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you. Let them be your hiding place!

39 »See now that I, even I, am he. There is no god besides me! It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heals. There is no one who can deliver from my hand.

40 »Indeed, I lift up my hand to heaven, and say: As I live forever,

41 »I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold on justice! I will render vengeance on my adversaries. I will repay those who hate me.

42 »I will make my arrows drunk with blood. My sword will devour flesh with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the longhaired leaders of the enemy.

43 »Rejoice you nations with his people. He will avenge the blood of his servants. He will render vengeance on his adversaries, and will atone for his land and his people.«

44 Then Moses came, along with Joshua son of Nun, and spoke all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.

45 When Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel,

46 he said to them: »Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today. Command your sons to observe carefully all the words of this law.

47 »It is not an idle talk! Indeed it is your life. By this word you will prolong your days in the land you to possess on the other side of the Jordan.«

48 Jehovah spoke to Moses that same day. He said:

49 »Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo. It is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho. Look at the land of Canaan. I am giving this to the sons of Israel for a possession.

50 »Then die on the mountain you climb. Be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

51 »You broke faith with me among the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin. You did not treat me as holy among of the sons of Israel.

52 »You will see the land at a distance, but you will not go into the land I am giving the sons of Israel.«