Chronological
32 Give ear, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.
3 For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God.
4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.
5 They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish—a perverse and crooked generation!
6 Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]?
7 Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.
9 For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance.
10 He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.
11 As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.(A)
12 So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.
13 He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock,
14 Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape.
15 But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged and sleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation.
16 They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger.
17 They sacrificed to demons, not to God—to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared.
18 Of the Rock Who bore you you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth.
19 And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.
20 And 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 is no faithfulness.
21 They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.
22 For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23 And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them.
24 They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust.
25 From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.
26 I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men,
27 Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord.
28 For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.
29 O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate!
30 How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?
31 For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.
32 For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter.
33 Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers.
34 Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?
35 Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily.
36 For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants’ sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free.
37 And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38 Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!
39 See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand.
40 For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,
41 If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me.
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 heads of the foe.
43 Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people.
44 And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and Hoshea (Joshua) son of Nun.
45 And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel,
46 He said to them, Set your [minds and] hearts on all the words which I command you this day, that you may command them to your children, that they may be watchful to do all the words of this law.
47 For it is not an empty and worthless trifle for you; it is your [very] life. By it you shall live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to possess.
48 And the Lord said to Moses that same day,
49 Get up into this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan which I give to the Israelites for a possession.
50 And die on the mountain which you ascend and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,
51 Because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin and because you did not set Me apart as holy in the midst of the Israelites.
52 For you shall see the land opposite you at a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land which I give the Israelites.
33 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the Israelites before his death.
2 He said, The Lord came from Sinai and beamed upon us from Seir; He flashed forth from Mount Paran, from among ten thousands of holy ones, a flaming fire, a law, at His right hand.
3 Yes, He loves [the tribes] His people; all those consecrated to Him are in Your hand. They followed in Your steps; they [accepted Your word and] received direction from You,
4 When Moses commanded us a law, as a possession for the assembly of Jacob.
5 [The Lord] was King in Jeshurun (Israel) when the heads of the people were gathered, all the tribes of Israel together.
6 Let [the tribe of] Reuben live and not die out, but [a]let his men be few.
7 And this he [Moses] said of Judah: Hear, O Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him to his people! With his hands he contended for himself; but may You be a help against his enemies.
8 And of Levi he said: Your Thummim and Your Urim [by which the priest sought God’s will for the nation] are for Your pious one [Aaron on behalf of the tribe], whom You tried and proved at Massah, with whom You contended at the waters of Meribah;(B)
9 [Aaron] who [b]said of his father and mother, I do not regard them; nor did he acknowledge his brothers or openly recognize his own children. For the priests observed Your word and kept Your covenant [as to their limitations].
10 [The priests] shall teach Jacob Your ordinances and Israel Your law. They shall put incense before You and whole burnt offerings upon Your altar.
11 Bless, O Lord, [Levi’s] substance, and accept the work of his hands; crush the loins of his adversaries, and of those who hate him, that they arise no more.
12 Of Benjamin he said: The beloved of the Lord shall [c]dwell in safety by Him; He covers him all the day long, and makes His dwelling between his shoulders.
13 And of Joseph he said: Blessed by the Lord be his land, with the precious gifts of heaven from the dew and from the deep that couches beneath,
14 With the precious things of the fruits of the sun and with the precious yield of the months,
15 With the chief products of the ancient mountains and with the precious things of the everlasting hills,
16 With the precious things of the earth and its fullness and the favor and goodwill of Him Who dwelt in the bush. Let these blessings come upon the head of Joseph, upon the crown of the head of him who was separate and prince among his brothers.(C)
17 Like a firstling young bull his majesty is, and his horns like the horns of the wild ox; with them he shall push the peoples, all of them, to the ends of the earth. And they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.
18 And of Zebulun he said: [d]Rejoice, Zebulun, in your interests abroad, and you, Issachar, in your tents [at home].
19 They shall call the people unto Mount [Carmel]; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness, for [e]they shall suck the abundance of the seas and the treasures hid in the sand.
20 And of Gad he said: Blessed is He Who enlarges Gad! Gad lurks like a lioness, and tears the arm, yes, the crown of the head.
21 He selected the best land for himself, for there was the leader’s portion reserved; yet he came with the chiefs of the nation, and the righteous will of the Lord he performed, and His ordinances with Israel.(D)
22 Of Dan he said: Dan is a lion’s whelp that leaps forth from Bashan.
23 Of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali, [f]satisfied with favor and full of the blessing of the Lord, possess the Sea [of Galilee] and [its warm, sunny climate like] the south.
24 Of Asher he said: Blessed above sons is Asher; let him be acceptable to his brothers, and [g]let him dip his foot in oil.
25 Your castles and strongholds shall have bars of iron and bronze, and as your day, so shall your strength, your rest and security, be.
26 There is none like God, O Jeshurun [Israel], Who rides through the heavens to your help and in His majestic glory through the skies.
27 The eternal God is your refuge and dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He drove the enemy before you and thrust them out, saying, Destroy!
28 And Israel dwells in safety, the fountain of Jacob alone in a land of grain and new wine; yes, His heavens drop dew.
29 Happy are you, O Israel, and blessing is yours! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the Shield of your help, the Sword that exalts you! Your enemies shall come fawning and cringing, and submit feigned obedience to you, and you shall march on their high places.
34 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land—from Gilead to Dan,
2 And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah to the western [Mediterranean] sea,
3 And the South (the Negeb) and the plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palm Trees, as far as Zoar.
4 And the Lord said to him, This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, I will give it to your descendants. I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.
5 So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord,
6 And He buried him in the valley of the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor, but no man knows where his tomb is to this day.
7 Moses was 120 years old when he died; his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.(E)
8 And the Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended.
9 And Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; so the Israelites listened to him and did as the Lord commanded Moses.
10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face,
11 [None equal to him] in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land,
12 And in all the mighty power and all the great and terrible deeds which Moses wrought in the sight of all Israel.
Psalm 91
1 He who [a]dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the Almighty [Whose power no foe can withstand].
2 I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust!
3 For [then] He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.
4 [Then] He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings shall you trust and find refuge; His truth and His faithfulness are a shield and a buckler.
5 You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow (the evil plots and slanders of the wicked) that flies by day,
6 Nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you.
8 Only a spectator shall you be [yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the Most High] as you witness the reward of the wicked.
9 Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your dwelling place,(A)
10 There shall no evil befall you, nor any plague or calamity come near your tent.
11 For He will give His angels [especial] charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all your ways [of obedience and service].
12 They shall bear you up on their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone.(B)
13 You shall tread upon the lion and adder; the young lion and the serpent shall you trample underfoot.(C)
14 Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him; I will set him on high, because he knows and understands My name [has a personal knowledge of My mercy, love, and kindness—trusts and relies on Me, knowing I will never forsake him, no, never].
15 He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him and show him My salvation.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation