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32
1 Heaven, listen as I speak; Earth, hear what I'm saying.
2 May my teaching fall gently like the rain; may my words drop lightly like the dew, like soft rain on new grass, like spring showers on growing plants.
3 I will praise the Lord's character. Tell everyone how great he is!
4 He is the Rock. Everything he does is perfect, for all his ways are right. He is the trustworthy God who is never unjust; he is fair and honest.
5 His children have acted immorally towards him; so they are no longer his children because of their sinful stains. They are a perverse and corrupt people.
6 Is this any way to repay the Lord, you foolish, stupid people? Isn't he your Father who created you? Isn't he the one who turned you into a nation and made you strong?
7 Remember the olden days; think about the generations of the past. Go and ask your father about them, and he will explain them to you. Talk to your elders, and they will tell you what you need to know.
8 The Most High gave the nations their lands when he divided the human race; he fixed their borders depending on their gods.*“Depending on their gods”: this phrase is unclear. The Masoretic text has “according to the number of the sons of Israel.” Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint have “according to the number of gods.” If the latter is the correct reading, it may mean that each nation was separated and given its borders in relationship to the gods they worshiped.
9 But the Lord's people are his, Israel is his chosen one.
10 He found you in a desert land, in a desolate wasteland of whirlwinds. He protected you; he cared for you; he looked after you as the one he loved the most.†“The one he loved the most”: or, “the apple of his eye.”
11 Like an eagle watching over‡“Watching over”: Septuagint reading. Hebrew, “rouses.” its nest, hovering over its chicks, he spread his wings and picked you up and carried you along.§“Along”: literally, “on his pinions,” the name of a part of a bird's wing that is not often used in English.
12 The Lord was the only one who led you; no foreign god was with him.
13 The Lord gave you the high country to rule,*“He gave him the high country to rule”: literally, “He set him on the backs of the land.” and fed you with the crops of the field to eat. He sustained you with honey from the rock and olive oil from the flinty crag,
14 with yogurt from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, along with the best wheat. You drank the wine made from the best grapes.
15 But Israel,†Literally, “Jeshurun,” meaning, “the good one.” you grew fat and rebelled—fat, overweight, and bloated with food. You abandoned the God who made you and despised the Rock of your salvation.
16 You made the Lord jealous by worshiping foreign gods; you made him angry with such disgusting practices.
17 You offered sacrifices to demons instead of God, to gods you didn't know anything about, to brand-new gods that your forefathers didn't worship.
18 You dismissed the Rock who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.
19 The Lord rejected them when he saw this; his sons and daughters made him angry.
20 He said: “I will turn away from them. Then I'll see what happens to them! They are a perverse people, unfaithful children.
21 They have made me jealous by worshiping things that are not God; they have made me angry with their useless idols. So I will make them jealous using a people that aren't really a nation; I will make them angry using ignorant foreigners.
22 My anger has been set on fire, burning down to the depths of the grave,‡“The grave”: literally, “Sheol.” destroying the earth and all it produces, even setting fire to the foundations of the mountains.
23 I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows shooting at them.
24 They will waste away from hunger, destroyed by disease and poisonous plague. I will send wild animals to bite them with their teeth, the fangs of snakes that slide along the ground.
25 Outside in the streets the sword kills their children, inside their homes, they die from fright; young men and young women, children and old people.
26 I would have told them I was going to cut them to pieces§“Cut them to pieces”: or, “scatter them.” and wipe out even the memory of them;
27 but I didn't want to hear their conquerors jeering, their enemies misunderstanding what had happened and saying, ‘We won all by ourselves, the Lord didn't have anything to do with it.’
28 Israel is a nation that doesn't think straight; none of them understand anything.
29 How I wish they were wise, so they could understand it; they would recognize what was going to happen to them.
30 How on earth could one man chase after a thousand, or two make ten thousand run away, unless their Rock of protection had sold them, unless the Lord had surrendered them?
31 The rock they rely on is not like our Rock, as even our enemies admit.*Septuagint reading.
32 But their vine comes from the vine of Sodom, from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; they are bitter bunches.
33 Their wine is the poison of serpents, deadly snake venom.
34 I've stored this all up; it's sealed in my vaults.
35 I make sure justice is done, I will repay. The time is coming when they will fall, their day of disaster is approaching, their doom will soon arrive.”
36 The Lord is going to vindicate his people; he will be merciful to his servants when he sees that they have no strength left, and that everyone is gone, whether slave or free.
37 He'll ask, “What happened to your gods, the rock where you went for protection?
38 Who ate the fat of your sacrifices and drank the wine of your drink offerings? Have them come and help you; have them come and protect you!
39 Listen! I am the only God! There is no other God except me! I bring death, and I give life; I wound, and I heal. No one can be rescued from my power.
40 I hold up my hand to heaven and solemnly declare on my eternal life,
41 when I sharpen my shining sword and pick it up to execute judgment, I will repay my enemies and punish those who hate me as they deserve.
42 My arrows will become drunk with blood, as my sword eats flesh; the blood of those who are killed and captured, the heads of the enemy's leaders.”
43 Celebrate with him! Let all God's angels worship him!†This line is not in the Masoretic text, but does occur in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint. It is also quoted in Hebrews 1:6. Celebrate, foreigners, with his people; because he will pay back those who killed his children.‡Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint reading. He will punish his enemies, and repay those who hate him;§“Repay those who hate him”: Septuagint and Vulgate reading. he will purify his land and his people.
44 Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song for the people to hear.
45 After Moses finished reciting the whole song to all the Israelites, 46 he told them, “Think about all these words I've declared to you today, so you can order your children to follow carefully everything in this law. 47 Don't treat these words as trivial because they are your life, and by them you will have long lives in the country that you will own after crossing the Jordan.”
48 That same day the Lord told Moses, 49 “Climb up into the Abarim mountains to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and look over the country of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for them to own.
50 There on the mountain you've climbed, you will die and join your people in death, in the same way your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people.
51 For there at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Desert of Zin, you both were unfaithful to me. You misrepresented me to the Israelites when you didn't treat me as holy in their presence. 52 Though you will see the country that I am giving the Israelites from a distance, you won't enter it.”

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*32:8 “Depending on their gods”: this phrase is unclear. The Masoretic text has “according to the number of the sons of Israel.” Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint have “according to the number of gods.” If the latter is the correct reading, it may mean that each nation was separated and given its borders in relationship to the gods they worshiped.

†32:10 “The one he loved the most”: or, “the apple of his eye.”

‡32:11 “Watching over”: Septuagint reading. Hebrew, “rouses.”

§32:11 “Along”: literally, “on his pinions,” the name of a part of a bird's wing that is not often used in English.

*32:13 “He gave him the high country to rule”: literally, “He set him on the backs of the land.”

†32:15 Literally, “Jeshurun,” meaning, “the good one.”

‡32:22 “The grave”: literally, “Sheol.”

§32:26 “Cut them to pieces”: or, “scatter them.”

*32:31 Septuagint reading.

†32:43 This line is not in the Masoretic text, but does occur in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint. It is also quoted in Hebrews 1:6.

‡32:43 Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint reading.

§32:43 “Repay those who hate him”: Septuagint and Vulgate reading.

© 2018 Dr. Jonathan Gallagher