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; 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. how just and upright he is! 5 “But they have acted corruptly toward him; They are a deceitful and twisted generation. 6 Is this the way you repay the LORD, Has he not made you and established you? 7 Remember the days of long ago; Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, according to the number in his heavenly court. 9 “For the people of Israel belong to the LORD; Jacob is his special possession. 10 He found them in a desert land, he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes. 11 Like an eagle that rouses her chicks 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 olive oil from the stony ground. 14 He fed them yogurt from the herd made from the juice of grapes. 15 “But Israel soon became fat and unruly; 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 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; children without integrity. 21 They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles. 22 For my anger blazes forth like fire 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, and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust. 25 Outside, the sword will bring death, 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, 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, unless the LORD had given them up? 31 But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock, as even they recognize. 32 Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom, 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. and their destiny will overtake them.’ 36 “Indeed, the LORD will give justice to his people, 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, Let them provide you with shelter! 39 Look now; I myself am he! 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 repay those who reject me. 42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and the heads of the enemy leaders.”’ 43 “Rejoice with him, you heavens, and cleanse his people’s land.” 44 So Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song to the people. 45 When Moses had finished reciting all these words to the people of Israel, 46 he added: “Take to heart all the words of warning I have given you today. Pass them on as a command to your children so they will obey every word of these instructions. 47 These instructions are not empty words—they are your life! By obeying them you will enjoy a long life in the land you will occupy when you cross the Jordan River.”

Moses’ Death Foretold

48 That same day the LORD said to Moses, 49 “Go to Moab, to the mountains east of the river, and climb Mount Nebo, which is across from Jericho. Look out across the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the people of Israel as their own special possession. 50 Then you will die there on the mountain. You will join your ancestors, just as Aaron, your brother, died on Mount Hor and joined his ancestors. 51 For both of you betrayed me with the Israelites at the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. You failed to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel there. 52 So you will see the land from a distance, but you may not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”