32 “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak!
    Hear, O earth, the words that I say!
² Let my teaching fall on you like rain;
    let my speech settle like dew.
Let my words fall like rain on tender grass,
    like gentle showers on young plants.
³ I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
    how glorious is our God!
⁴ He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect.
    Everything he does is just and fair.
He is a faithful God who does no wrong;
    how just and upright he is!

⁵ “But they have acted corruptly toward him;
    when they act so perversely,
are they really his children?^[a]
    They are a deceitful and twisted generation.
⁶ Is this the way you repay the Lord,
    you foolish and senseless people?
Isn’t he your Father who created you?
    Has he not made you and established you?
⁷ Remember the days of long ago;
    think about the generations past.
Ask your father, and he will inform you.
    Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.
⁸ When the Most High assigned lands to the nations,
    when he divided up the human race,
he established the boundaries of the peoples
    according to the number in his heavenly court.^[b]

⁹ “For the people of Israel belong to the Lord;
    Jacob is his special possession.
¹⁰ He found them in a desert land,
    in an empty, howling wasteland.
He surrounded them and watched over them;
    he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.^[c]
11 Like an eagle that rouses her chicks
    and hovers over her young,
so he spread his wings to take them up
    and carried them safely on his pinions.
¹² The Lord alone guided them;
    they followed no foreign gods.
¹³ He let them ride over the highlands
    and feast on the crops of the fields.
He nourished them with honey from the rock
    and olive oil from the stony ground.
¹⁴ He fed them yogurt from the herd
    and milk from the flock,
    together with the fat of lambs.
He gave them choice rams from Bashan, and goats,
    together with the choicest wheat.
You drank the finest wine,
    made from the juice of grapes.

¹⁵ “But Israel^[d] soon became fat and unruly;
    the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed!
Then they abandoned the God who had made them;
    they made light of the Rock of their salvation.
¹⁶ They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods;
    they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.
¹⁷ They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God,
    to gods they had not known before,
to new gods only recently arrived,
    to gods their ancestors had never feared.
¹⁸ You neglected the Rock who had fathered you;
    you forgot the God who had given you birth.

¹⁹ “The Lord saw this and drew back,
    provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.
²⁰ He said, ‘I will abandon them;
    then see what becomes of them.
For they are a twisted generation,
    children without integrity.
²¹ They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God;
    they have provoked my anger with their useless idols.
Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people;
    I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.
²² For my anger blazes forth like fire
    and burns to the depths of the grave.^[e]
It devours the earth and all its crops
    and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
²³ I will heap disasters upon them
    and shoot them down with my arrows.
²⁴ I will weaken them with famine,
    burning fever, and deadly disease.
I will send the fangs of wild beasts
    and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.
²⁵ Outside, the sword will bring death,
    and inside, terror will strike
both young men and young women,
    both infants and the aged.
²⁶ I would have annihilated them,
    wiping out even the memory of them.
²⁷ But I feared the taunt of Israel’s enemy,
    who might misunderstand and say,
“Our own power has triumphed!
    The Lord had nothing to do with this!”’

²⁸ “But Israel is a senseless nation;
    the people are foolish, without understanding.
²⁹ Oh, that they were wise and could understand this!
    Oh, that they might know their fate!
³⁰ How could one person chase a thousand of them,
    and two people put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
    unless the Lord had given them up?
³¹ But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock,
    as even they recognize.^[f]
32 Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom,
    from the vineyards of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are poison,
    and their clusters are bitter.
³³ Their wine is the venom of serpents,
    the deadly poison of cobras.

³⁴ “The Lord says, ‘Am I not storing up these things,
    sealing them away in my treasury?
³⁵ I will take revenge; I will pay them back.
    In due time their feet will slip.
Their day of disaster will arrive,
    and their destiny will overtake them.’

³⁶ “Indeed, the Lord will give justice to his people,
    and he will change his mind about^[g] his servants,
when he sees their strength is gone
    and no one is left, slave or free.
³⁷ Then he will ask, ‘Where are their gods,
    the rocks they fled to for refuge?
³⁸ Where now are those gods,
    who ate the fat of their sacrifices
    and drank the wine of their offerings?
Let those gods arise and help you!
    Let them provide you with shelter!
³⁹ Look now; I myself am he!
    There is no other god but me!
I am the one who kills and gives life;
    I am the one who wounds and heals;
    no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!
⁴⁰ Now I raise my hand to heaven
    and declare, “As surely as I live,
⁴¹ when I sharpen my flashing sword
    and begin to carry out justice,
I will take revenge on my enemies
    and repay those who reject me.
⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
    and my sword will devour flesh—
the blood of the slaughtered and the captives,
    and the heads of the enemy leaders.”’

⁴³ “Rejoice with him, you heavens,
    and let all of God’s angels worship him.^[h]
Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles,
    and let all the angels be strengthened in him.^[i]
For he will avenge the blood of his children^[j];
    he will take revenge against his enemies.
He will repay those who hate him^[k]
    and cleanse his people’s land.”

² “The Lord came from Mount Sinai
    and dawned upon us^[o] from Mount Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran
    and came from Meribah-kadesh
    with flaming fire at his right hand.^[p]
3 Indeed, he loves his people;^[q]
    all his holy ones are in his hands.
They follow in his steps
    and accept his teaching.
⁴ Moses gave us the Lord’s instruction,
    the special possession of the people of Israel.^[r]
5 The Lord became king in Israel^[s]—
    when the leaders of the people assembled,
    when the tribes of Israel gathered as one.”

“Let the tribe of Reuben live and not die out,
    though they are few in number.”

“O Lord, hear the cry of Judah
    and bring them together as a people.
Give them strength to defend their cause;
    help them against their enemies!”

“O Lord, you have given your Thummim and Urim—the sacred lots—
    to your faithful servants the Levites.^[u]
You put them to the test at Massah
    and struggled with them at the waters of Meribah.
⁹ The Levites obeyed your word
    and guarded your covenant.
They were more loyal to you
    than to their own parents.
They ignored their relatives
    and did not acknowledge their own children.
¹⁰ They teach your regulations to Jacob;
    they give your instructions to Israel.
They present incense before you
    and offer whole burnt offerings on the altar.
¹¹ Bless the ministry of the Levites, O Lord,
    and accept all the work of their hands.
Hit their enemies where it hurts the most;
    strike down their foes so they never rise again.”

“The people of Benjamin are loved by the Lord
    and live in safety beside him.
He surrounds them continuously
    and preserves them from every harm.”

“May their land be blessed by the Lord
    with the precious gift of dew from the heavens
    and water from beneath the earth;
¹⁴ with the rich fruit that grows in the sun,
    and the rich harvest produced each month;
¹⁵ with the finest crops of the ancient mountains,
    and the abundance from the everlasting hills;
¹⁶ with the best gifts of the earth and its bounty,
    and the favor of the one who appeared in the burning bush.
May these blessings rest on Joseph’s head,
    crowning the brow of the prince among his brothers.
¹⁷ Joseph has the majesty of a young bull;
    he has the horns of a wild ox.
He will gore distant nations,
    even to the ends of the earth.
This is my blessing for the multitudes of Ephraim
    and the thousands of Manasseh.”

“May the people of Zebulun prosper in their travels.
    May the people of Issachar prosper at home in their tents.
¹⁹ They summon the people to the mountain
    to offer proper sacrifices there.
They benefit from the riches of the sea
    and the hidden treasures in the sand.”

“Blessed is the one who enlarges Gad’s territory!
    Gad is poised there like a lion
    to tear off an arm or a head.
²¹ The people of Gad took the best land for themselves;
    a leader’s share was assigned to them.
When the leaders of the people were assembled,
    they carried out the Lord’s justice
    and obeyed his regulations for Israel.”

“Dan is a lion’s cub,
    leaping out from Bashan.”

“O Naphtali, you are rich in favor
    and full of the Lord’s blessings;
    may you possess the west and the south.”

“May Asher be blessed above other sons;
    may he be esteemed by his brothers;
    may he bathe his feet in olive oil.
²⁵ May the bolts of your gates be of iron and bronze;
    may you be secure all your days.”

²⁶ “There is no one like the God of Israel.^[w]
    He rides across the heavens to help you,
    across the skies in majestic splendor.
²⁷ The eternal God is your refuge,
    and his everlasting arms are under you.
He drives out the enemy before you;
    he cries out, ‘Destroy them!’
²⁸ So Israel will live in safety,
    prosperous Jacob in security,
in a land of grain and new wine,
    while the heavens drop down dew.
²⁹ How blessed you are, O Israel!
    Who else is like you, a people saved by the Lord?
He is your protecting shield
    and your triumphant sword!
Your enemies will cringe before you,
    and you will stomp on their backs!”