Deuteronomy 32
Good News Translation
32 “Earth and sky, hear my words,
listen closely to what I say.
2 My teaching will fall like drops of rain
and form on the earth like dew.
My words will fall like showers on young plants,
like gentle rain on tender grass.
3 I will praise the name of the Lord,
and his people will tell of his greatness.
4 “The Lord is your mighty defender,
perfect and just in all his ways;
Your God is faithful and true;
he does what is right and fair.
5 But you are unfaithful, unworthy to be his people,[a]
a sinful and deceitful nation.
6 Is this the way you should treat the Lord,
you foolish, senseless people?
He is your father, your Creator,
he made you into a nation.
7 “Think of the past, of the time long ago;
ask your parents to tell you what happened,
ask the old people to tell of the past.
8 (A)The Most High assigned nations their lands;
he determined where peoples should live.
He assigned to each nation a heavenly being,
9 but Jacob's descendants he chose for himself.
10 “He found them wandering through the desert,
a desolate, wind-swept wilderness.
He protected them and cared for them,
as he would protect himself.
11 Like an eagle teaching its young to fly,[b]
catching them safely on its spreading wings,
the Lord kept Israel from falling.
12 The Lord alone led his people
without the help of a foreign god.
13 “He let them rule the highlands,
and they ate what grew in the fields.
They found wild honey among the rocks;
their olive trees flourished in stony ground.
14 Their cows and goats gave plenty of milk;
they had the best sheep, goats, and cattle,
the finest wheat, and the choicest wine.
15 “The Lord's people grew rich, but rebellious;
they were fat and stuffed with food.
They abandoned God their Creator
and rejected their mighty savior.
16 Their idolatry made the Lord jealous;
the evil they did made him angry.
17 (B)They sacrificed to gods that are not real,
new gods their ancestors had never known,
gods that Israel had never obeyed.
18 They forgot their God, their mighty savior,
the one who had given them life.
19 “When the Lord saw this, he was angry
and rejected his sons and daughters.
20 ‘I will no longer help them,’ he said;
‘then I will see what happens to them,
those stubborn, unfaithful people.
21 (C)With their idols they have made me angry,
jealous with their so-called gods,
gods that are really not gods.
So I will use a so-called nation to make them angry;
I will make them jealous with a nation of fools.
22 My anger will flame up like fire
and burn everything on earth.
It will reach to the world below[c]
and consume the roots of the mountains.
23 “‘I will bring on them endless disasters
and use all my arrows against them.
24 They will die from hunger and fever;
they will die from terrible diseases.
I will send wild animals to attack them,
and poisonous snakes to bite them.
25 War will bring death in the streets;
terrors will strike in the homes.
Young men and young women will die;
neither babies nor old people will be spared.
26 I would have destroyed them completely,
so that no one would remember them.
27 But I could not let their enemies boast
that they had defeated my people,
when it was I myself who had crushed them.’
28 “Israel is a nation without sense;
they have no wisdom at all.
29 They fail to see why they were defeated;
they cannot understand what happened.
30 Why were a thousand defeated by one,
and ten thousand by only two?
The Lord, their God, had abandoned them;
their mighty God had given them up.
31 Their enemies know that their own gods are weak,
not mighty like Israel's God.
32 Their enemies, corrupt as Sodom and Gomorrah,
are like vines that bear bitter and poisonous grapes,
33 like wine made from the venom of snakes.
34 “The Lord remembers what their enemies have done;
he waits for the right time to punish them.
35 (D)The Lord will take revenge and punish them;
the time will come when they will fall;
the day of their doom is near.
36 (E)The Lord will rescue his people
when he sees that their strength is gone.
He will have mercy on those who serve him,
when he sees how helpless they are.
37 Then the Lord will ask his people,
‘Where are those mighty gods you trusted?
38 You fed them the fat of your sacrifices
and offered them wine to drink.
Let them come and help you now;
let them run to your rescue.
39 “‘I, and I alone, am God;
no other god is real.
I kill and I give life, I wound and I heal,
and no one can oppose what I do.
40 As surely as I am the living God,
I raise my hand and I vow
41 that I will sharpen my flashing sword
and see that justice is done.
I will take revenge on my enemies
and punish those who hate me.
42 My arrows will drip with their blood,
and my sword will kill all who oppose me.
I will spare no one who fights against me;
even the wounded and prisoners will die.’
43 (F)“Nations, you must praise the Lord's people—
he punishes all who kill them.
He takes revenge on his enemies
and forgives the sins of his people.”
44 Moses and Joshua son of Nun recited this song, so that the people of Israel could hear it.
Moses' Final Instructions
45 When Moses had finished giving God's teachings to the people, 46 he said, “Be sure to obey all these commands that I have given you today. Repeat them to your children, so that they may faithfully obey all of God's teachings. 47 These teachings are not empty words; they are your very life. Obey them and you will live long in that land across the Jordan that you are about to occupy.”
48 (G)That same day the Lord said to Moses, 49 “Go to the Abarim Mountains in the land of Moab opposite the city of Jericho; climb Mount Nebo and look at the land of Canaan that I am about to give the people of Israel. 50 You will die on that mountain as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor, 51 because both of you were unfaithful to me in the presence of the people of Israel. When you were at the waters of Meribah, near the town of Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, you dishonored me in the presence of the people. 52 You will look at the land from a distance, but you will not enter the land that I am giving the people of Israel.”
Footnotes
- Deuteronomy 32:5 Probable text But you … people; Hebrew unclear.
- Deuteronomy 32:11 teaching its young to fly; or watching over its young.
- Deuteronomy 32:22 This refers to the world of the dead.
Deuteronomy 32
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
32 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;
let the earth hear the words of my mouth.(A)
2 May my teaching drop like the rain,
my speech condense like the dew,
like gentle rain on grass,
like showers on new growth.(B)
3 For I will proclaim the name of the Lord,
ascribe greatness to our God!(C)
4 The Rock, his work is perfect,
and all his ways are just.
A faithful God, without deceit,
just and upright is he;(D)
5 yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,[a]
a perverse and crooked generation.(E)
6 Do you thus repay the Lord,
O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father who created you,
who made you and established you?(F)
7 Remember the days of old;
consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you,
your elders, and they will tell you.(G)
8 When the Most High[b] apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;[c](H)
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.(I)
10 He sustained[d] him in a desert land,
in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of his eye.(J)
11 As an eagle stirs up its nest
and hovers over its young,
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions,(K)
12 the Lord alone guided him;
no foreign god was with him.(L)
13 He set him atop the heights of the land
and fed him with[e] produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
with oil from flinty rock,(M)
14 curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs and rams,
Bashan bulls and goats,
together with the choicest wheat—
you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.(N)
15 Jacob ate his fill;[f]
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked.
You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.(O)
16 They made him jealous with strange gods;
with abhorrent things they provoked him.(P)
17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared.(Q)
18 You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;[g]
you forgot the God who gave you birth.(R)
19 The Lord saw it and was jealous;[h]
he spurned[i] his sons and daughters.(S)
20 He said, ‘I will hide my face from them;
I will see what their end will be,
for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom there is no faithfulness.(T)
21 They made me jealous with what is no god,
provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
provoke them with a foolish nation.(U)
22 For a fire is kindled by my anger
and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase
and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.(V)
23 I will heap disasters upon them,
spend my arrows against them:(W)
24 wasting hunger,
burning consumption,
bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
with venom of things crawling in the dust.(X)
25 In the street the sword shall bereave,
and in the chambers terror
for young man and woman alike,
nursing child and old gray head.(Y)
26 I said, “I will make an end of them[j]
and blot out the memory of them from humankind,”(Z)
27 but I feared provocation by the enemy,
for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, “Our hand is triumphant;
it was not the Lord who did all this.” ’(AA)
28 They are a nation void of sense;
there is no understanding in them.
29 If they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern what their end would be.(AB)
30 How could one have routed a thousand
and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
the Lord had given them up?(AC)
31 Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock;
our enemies are fools.[k](AD)
32 Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison;
their clusters are bitter;
33 their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.(AE)
34 Is not this laid up in store with me,
sealed up in my treasuries,(AF)
35 for the day of vengeance[l] and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip?
Because the day of their calamity is at hand;
their doom comes swiftly.(AG)
36 Indeed, the Lord will vindicate his people,
have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
neither bond nor free remaining.(AH)
37 Then he will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,(AI)
38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you;
let them be your protection!
39 See now that I, even I, am he;
there is no god besides me.
I kill, and I make alive;
I wound, and I heal;
and no one can deliver from my hand.(AJ)
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven
and swear, As I live forever,
41 when I whet my flashing sword
and my hand takes hold on judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and will repay those who hate me.(AK)
42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
from the long-haired enemy.’(AL)
43 Praise, O heavens,[m] his people;
worship him, all you gods![n]
For he will avenge the blood of his children[o]
and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him[p]
and cleanse the land for his people.”[q](AM)
44 Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua[r] son of Nun. 45 When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel, 46 he said to them, “Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law.(AN) 47 This is no trifling matter for you but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”(AO)
Moses’s Death Foretold
48 On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows: 49 “Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession;(AP) 50 you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin, 51 because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites.(AQ) 52 Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it, the land that I am giving to the Israelites.”(AR)
Footnotes
- 32.5 Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 32.8 Traditional rendering of Heb Elyon
- 32.8 Q ms Compare Gk Tg: MT the Israelites
- 32.10 Sam Gk Compare Tg: MT found
- 32.13 Sam Gk Syr Tg: MT he ate
- 32.15 Q mss Sam Gk: MT lacks Jacob ate his fill
- 32.18 Or that fathered you
- 32.19 Q mss Gk: MT lacks was jealous
- 32.19 Cn: Heb he spurned because of provocation
- 32.26 Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
- 32.31 Gk: Heb judges
- 32.35 Sam Gk: MT vengeance is mine
- 32.43 Q ms Gk: MT nations
- 32.43 Q ms Gk: MT lacks this line
- 32.43 Q ms Gk: MT his servants
- 32.43 Q ms Gk: MT lacks this line
- 32.43 Q ms Sam Gk Vg: MT his land his people
- 32.44 Sam Gk Syr Vg: MT Hoshea
Deuteronomy 32
King James Version
32 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3 Because I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.
4 He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
5 They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
8 When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
9 For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11 As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:
12 So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
13 He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
14 Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape.
15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16 They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17 They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
18 Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
19 And when the Lord saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20 And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21 They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them.
24 They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25 The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27 Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this.
28 For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30 How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up?
31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32 For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33 Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.
34 Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35 To me belongeth vengeance and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36 For the Lord shall judge his people, and repent himself for his servants, when he seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up, or left.
37 And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38 Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and 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: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.
41 If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42 I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the beginning of revenges upon the enemy.
43 Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
44 And Moses came and spake all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he, and Hoshea the son of Nun.
45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:
46 And he said unto them, Set your hearts unto all the words which I testify among you this day, which ye shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law.
47 For it is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life: and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land, whither ye go over Jordan to possess it.
48 And the Lord spake unto Moses that selfsame day, saying,
49 Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is over against Jericho; and behold the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession:
50 And die in the mount whither thou goest up, and be gathered unto thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered unto his people:
51 Because ye trespassed against me among the children of Israel at the waters of MeribahKadesh, in the wilderness of Zin; because ye sanctified me not in the midst of the children of Israel.
52 Yet thou shalt see the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither unto the land which I give the children of Israel.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.