Deuteronomy 32

Tree of Life Version

⁷ “Remember the days of antiquity,
understand the years across generations.^[b]
Ask your father and he will tell you,
    your elders and they will say to you.
⁸ When Elyon gave nations their heritage,
when He separated the sons of man,
He set boundaries for the people
    by the number of Bnei-Yisrael.
⁹ But Adonai’s portion is His people—
Jacob is the share of His inheritance.
¹⁰ He found him in the wilderness land,
in the void of a howling waste.
He surrounded him, cared for him,
    guarded him as the pupil of His eye.
¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,
    hovers over its young,
He spreads His wings, catches him,
    lifts him up on His pinions.
¹² Adonai alone guided him—
there was no foreign god with him.

¹³ He made him mount the heights of the land.
so he ate the produce of the field.
He suckled him with honey from a rock,
    with oil from a flinty boulder.
¹⁴ Butter of cattle and milk of a flock,
    with fat of lambs,
    rams of the Bashan and he-goats,
    with fat of the kidneys of wheat,
    and blood of grapes you drank.
¹⁵ But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—
you got fat, you grew thick, you gorged!
He forsook God who made him.
He mocked the Rock of his salvation.
¹⁶ They made him jealous with strangers,
with abominations they angered Him.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, a non-god,
gods they had not known—
to new ones who came in lately,
ones your fathers had not dreaded.
¹⁸ The Rock who birthed you, you ignored.
You forgot God who brought you forth.

¹⁹ “Adonai saw, and He spurned His sons
and His daughters out of vexation.
²⁰ He said, “I will hide My face from them,
I want to see their hereafter.
For they are an upside down generation,
    children with no faithfulness in them.
²¹ They made Me jealous with a non-god.
They vexed Me with airy idols.
So I will make them jealous with a non-people.
With a foolish nation I will vex them.^[c]
22 For fire has ignited in My nostrils—
it will burn to Sheol beneath,
devour the earth and her produce,
and scorch the foundations of mountains.
²³ I will heap calamities upon them.
With My arrows I will finish them.
²⁴ Wasted by famine, ravaged by plague
    and pestilence so bitter,
fangs of beasts I’ll let loose on them,
    with venom of creepers in the dust.
²⁵ Outside the sword deals death,
    and inside terror—
to both young men and young women,
    infants, with men of gray hair.
²⁶ I would have said,
‘I will hack them to pieces,
make the memory of them cease from mankind,’
²⁷ except I dread the taunt of the enemy,
lest their foes might misconstrue—
lest they say, ‘Our hand is held high,
and Adonai has not done all this.’
²⁸ For they are a nation lacking counsel,
among them there is no understanding.

²⁹ “If they were wise,
    they would discern this,
they would understand their hereafter.
³⁰ How can one chase a thousand
    and two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them
    and Adonai had handed them over?
³¹ Surely their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies judge.
³² For their vine is from the vine of Sodom
and from the terraces of Gomorrah.
Its grapes are grapes of poison—
    bitter clusters on it.
³³ Venom of serpents is their wine—
poison of vipers so cruel.
³⁴ Is it not stored up with Me,
sealed up in My treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is Mine, and payback,^[d]
for the time when their foot staggers.
Surely their day of disaster is near—
what is prepared rushes on them.
³⁶ For Adonai will judge His people—
for His servants, He will relent
when He sees that strength^[e] is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
³⁷ He will say, ‘Where are their gods,
the “rock” they took refuge in?
³⁸ Who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their libation?
Let them rise up and help you
and be a shelter over you!
³⁹ See now that I, I am He!
There are no other gods beside Me.
I bring death and give life,
I have wounded but I will heal,^[f]
and none can rescue from My hand.’

⁴⁰ “Yes, I lift My hand up to heaven
and say, ‘As I Myself live forever,
⁴¹ when I sharpen My lightning sword
and My hand seizes it in judgment,
I will return vengeance on My foes,
and those who hate Me I will pay back.
⁴² I will make My arrows drunk from blood,
and My sword will devour flesh—
    the blood of the slain and the captive,
    the head of the leaders of the enemy.’
⁴³ Make His people rejoice, O nations,^[g]
for He will avenge the blood of His servants.^[h]
He will return vengeance on His foes,
    and atone for the land of His people.”