Chapter 32

¹ And Moses spoke all the words of this song even to the end, in the ears of the whole assembly.

Attend, O heaven, and I will speak; and let the earth hear the words out of my mouth. ² Let my speech be looked for as the rain, and my words come down as dew, as the shower upon the herbage, and as snow upon the grass. ³ For I have called on the name of the Lord: assign ye greatness to our God. ⁴ As for God, his works are true, and all his ways are ¹judgment: God is faithful, and there is no unrighteousness in him; just and holy is the Lord. ⁵ They

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have sinned, not pleasing him; spotted children, a froward and perverse generation. ⁶ Do ye thus recompense the Lord? is the people thus foolish and unwise? did not he himself thy father purchase thee, and make thee and form thee? ⁷ Remember the days of old consider the years ²for past ages: ask thy father, and he shall relate to thee, thine elders, and they shall tell thee.

⁸ When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God. ⁹ And his people Jacob become the portion of the Lord, Israel was the line of his inheritance. ¹⁰ He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry land: he led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of an eye. ¹¹ As an eagle would watch over his brood and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings, and takes them up on his back: ¹² the Lord alone led them, there was no strange god with them. ¹³ He brought them up on the strength of the land; he fed them with the fruits of the fields; they sucked honey out of the rock, and oil out of the solid rock. ¹⁴ Butter of cows, and milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams, of calves and kids, with fat of kidneys of wheat; and he drank wine, the blood of the grape. ¹⁵ So Jacob ate and was filled, and the beloved one kicked; be grew fat, he became thick and broad: then he forsook the God that made him and departed from God his Saviour.

¹⁶ They revoked me to anger with strange gods; with their abominations they bitterly angered me. ¹⁷ They sacrificed to devils, and not to God; to gods whom they knew not: new and fresh gods came in, whom their fathers knew not. ¹⁸ Thou hast forsaken God that begot thee, and forgotten God who feeds thee.

¹⁹ And the Lord saw, and was jealous; and was provoked by the anger of his sons and daughters, ²⁰ and said, I will turn away my face from them, and will show what shall happen to them in the last days; for it is a perverse generation, sons in whom is no faith.

^{21 3}They have provoked me to jealousy with that which is not God, they have exasperated me, with their idols; and I will provoke them to jealousy with them that are no nation, I will anger them with a nation void of understanding. ²² For a fire has been kindled out of my wrath, it shall burn to hell below; it shall devour the land, and the fruits of it; it shall set on fire the foundations of the mountains. ²³ I will gather evils upon them, and will ⁴fight with my weapons against them. ²⁴ They shall be consumed with hunger and the devouring of birds, and there shall be irremediable ⁵destruction: I will send forth against them the teeth of wild beasts, with the rage of serpents creeping on the ground. ²⁵ Without, the sword shall bereave them of children, and terror shall issue out of the secret chambers; the young man shall perish with the virgin, the suckling with him who has grown old. ²⁶ I said, I will scatter them, and I will cause their memorial to cease from

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among men. ²⁷ Were it not for the wrath of the enemy, lest they should live long, lest their enemies should combine against them; lest they should say, Our own high arm, and not the Lord, has done all these things.

²⁸ It is a nation that has lost counsel, neither is there understanding in them. ²⁹ They had not sense to understand: let them reserve these things against the time to come. ³⁰ How ⁶should one pursue a thousand, and two rout tens of thouands, if God had not sold them, and the Lord delivered them up? ³¹ For their gods a not as our God, but our enemies are void of understanding. ³² For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and their vine-branch of Gomorrha: their grape is a grape of gall, their cluster is one of bitterness. ³³ Their wine is the rage of serpents, and the incurable rage of asps. ³⁴ Lo! are not these things stored up by me, and sealed among my treasures? ³⁵ In the day of vengeance ⁷I will recompense, whensoever their foot shall be tripped up; for the day of their destruction is near to them, and the judgments at hand are close upon you. ³⁶ For the Lord shall judge his people, and shall be comforted over his servants; for he saw that they were ⁸utterly weakened, and failed in the hostile invasion, and were become feeble: ³⁷ and the Lord said, Where are their gods on whom they trusted? ³⁸ the fat of whose sacrifices ye ate, and ye drank the wine of their drink-offerings? let them arise and help you, and be your protectors. ³⁹ Behold, behold that I am he and there is no god beside me: I kill, and I will make to live: I will smite, and I will heal; and there in none who shall deliver out of my hands. ⁴⁰ For I will lift up my hand to heaven, and swear by my right hand, and I will say, I live for ever. ⁴¹ For I will sharpen my sword like lightning, and my hand shall take hold of judgment; and I will render judgment to my enemies, and will recompense them that hate me. ⁴² I will make my weapons drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, it shall glut itself with the blood of the wounded, and from the captivity of the ⁹heads of their enemies that rule over them.

⁴³ Rejoice, ye heavens, with him, and let all the angels of God worship him; ¹⁰rejoice ye Gentiles, with his people, and let the sons of God strengthen themselves in him; for he will avenge the blood of his sons, and he will render vengeance, and recompense justice to his enemies, and will reward them that hate him; and the Lord shall purge the land of his people.

⁴⁴ And Moses wrote this song in that day, and taught it to the children of Israel; and Moses went in and spoke all the words of this law in the ears of the people, he and Joshua the son of Naue. ⁴⁵ And Moses finished speaking to all Israel. ⁴⁶ And he said to them, Take heed with your heart to all these words, which I testify to you this day, which ye shall command your sons, to observe and do all the words of this law. ⁴⁷ For this is no vain word to you; for it is your life, and because of this word ye shall

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live long upon the land, into which ye go over Jordan to inherit it. ⁴⁸ And the Lord spoke to Moses in this day, saying, ⁴⁹ Go up to the mount Abarim, this mountain Nabau which is in the land of Moab over against Jericho, and behold the land of Chanaan, which I give to the sons of Israel: ⁵⁰ and die in the mount whither thou goest up and be added to thy people; as Aaron thy brother died in mount Or, and was added to his people. ⁵¹ Because ye disobeyed my word among the children of Israel, at the waters of strife of Cades in the wilderness of Sin; because ye sanctified me not among the sons of Israel. ⁵² Thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt not enter into it.