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Chapter Summary
Ascribe greatness to our God! The LORD's portion is his people; They turned away so he spurned them; But he will provide atonement.
1“Listen, O heavens, to what I am saying. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth. 2Let my doctrine accumulate like the rain. Let my eloquence form like the dew, like a mist upon the plants, and like water droplets upon the grass. 3For I will invoke the name of the Lord. Acknowledge the magnificence of our God! 4The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments. God is faithful and without any iniquity. He is just and upright. 5They have sinned against him, and in their filth they are not his sons. They are a depraved and perverse generation. 6How can this be the return you would offer to the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is he himself not your Father, who has possessed you, and made you, and created you? 7Remember the days of antiquity. Consider each generation. Question your father, and he will declare it to you. Question your elders, and they will tell it to you. 8When the Most High divided the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the limits of the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. 9But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob, the lot of his inheritance. 10He discovered him in a desert land, in a place of horror and a vast wilderness. He led him around and taught him, and he guarded him like the pupil of his eye, 11just as an eagle encourages its young to fly, and, flying above them, stretches out its wings, and takes them up, and carries them on its shoulders. 12The Lord alone was his leader, and there was no strange god with him. 13He stood him upon an exalted land, so that he might eat the fruits of the fields, so that he might eat honey from the rock, and oil from the hardest stone, 14butter from the herd, and milk from the sheep, with fat from the lambs, and with rams and goats from the sons of Bashan, with the kernel of the wheat, and so that he might drink the undiluted blood of the grape. 15The beloved grew fat, and he kicked. Having grown fat and thick and wide, he abandoned God, his Maker, and he withdrew from God, his Savior. 16They provoked him with strange gods, and they stirred him to anger by their abominations. 17They immolated to demons and not to God, to gods whom they did not know, who were new and recent arrivals, whom their fathers did not worship. 18You have forsaken the God who conceived you, and you have forgotten the Lord who created you. 19The Lord saw, and he was stirred to anger. For his own sons and daughters provoked him. 20And he said: ‘I will hide my face from them, and I will consider their very end. For this is a perverse generation, and they are unfaithful sons. 21They have provoked me with that which was not God, and they have angered me with their emptiness. And so, I will provoke them with that which is not a people, and I will anger them with a foolish nation. 22A fire has been kindled in my fury, and it will burn even to the deepest Hell, and it will devour the earth with its produce, and it will burn the foundations of the mountains. 23I will heap evils upon them, and I will expend my arrows among them. 24They will be consumed by famine, and birds with a very bitter bite will devour them. I will send forth the teeth of wild beasts among them, along with the fury of creatures that scurry across the ground, and of serpents. 25Outside, the sword will devastate them; and inside, there will be dread, as much for the young man as for the maiden, and as much for the newborn as for the old man. 26I said: Where are they? I will cause their memory to cease from among men. 27But because of the wrath of the enemies, I have delayed it. Otherwise, perhaps their enemies would be arrogant and would say: “Our exalted hand, and not the Lord, has done all these things.” 28They are a nation without counsel and without prudence. 29I wish that they would be wise and understanding, and would provide for the very end.’ 30How is it that one pursues a thousand, and two chases ten thousand? Is it not because their God has sold them, and because the Lord has enclosed them? 31For our God is not like their gods. And our enemies are judges. 32Their vines are of the vines of Sodom, but from the suburbs of Gomorrah. Their grapes are the grapes of gall, and their grape clusters are most bitter. 33Their wine is the gall of snakes, and it is the incurable venom of asps. 34‘Have not these things been stored up with me, and sealed up amid my treasures? 35Vengeance is mine, and I will repay them in due time, so that their foot may slip and fall. The day of perdition is near, and the time rushes to appear.’ 36The Lord will judge his people, and he will take pity on his servants. He will see that their hand has been weakened, and that those who have been enclosed have likewise failed, and that those who have been left behind have been consumed. 37And he shall say: ‘Where are their gods, in whom they had confidence? 38They ate the fat of their victims, and they drank the wine of their libations. So let these rise up, and bring relief to you, and protect you in your distress. 39See that I am alone, and there is no other god beside me. I will kill, and I will cause to live. I will strike, and I will heal. And there is no one who is able to rescue from my hand. 40I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live in eternity. 41When I sharpen my sword like lightning, and my hand takes hold of judgment, then I will render vengeance to my enemies, and I will repay those who hate me. 42I will inebriate my arrows with blood, and my sword will devour flesh: from the blood of the slain and from the captive, from the exposed head of the enemies.’ 43You nations, praise his people! For he will avenge the blood of his servants. And he will distribute vengeance to their enemies. And he will be merciful to the land of his people.” 44Therefore, Moses went and spoke all the words of this canticle to the ears of the people, both he and Joshua, the son of Nun. 45And he completed all these words, speaking to all of Israel. 46And he said to them: “Set your hearts upon all the words which I am testifying to you this day. So shall you command your sons, to keep, and to do, and to fulfill all the things that have been written in this law. 47For these things have not been entrusted to you to no purpose, but so that each one would live by them, and so that, in doing these, you may continue for a long time in the land, which you will enter upon crossing the Jordan in order to possess it.”
48And the Lord spoke to Moses on the same day, saying: 49“Ascend this mountain, Abarim, (that is, of crossings) onto Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and look upon the land of Canaan, which I will deliver to the sons of Israel to obtain it. And you shall die upon the mountain. 50After climbing it, you will be joined to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor, and was placed with his people. 51For you trespassed against me in the midst of the sons of Israel, at the Waters of Contradiction, in Kadesh, in the desert of Sin. And you did not sanctify me among the sons of Israel. 52You shall see the land opposite you, which I will give to the sons of Israel, but you shall not enter into it.”