The Song of Moses
1 "Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2
May my teaching trickle like the dew, my words like rain showers on tender grass, and like spring showers on new growth.
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For I will proclaim the name of Yahweh; ascribe greatness to our God!
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The Rock, his work [is] perfect, for all his ways [are] just; [he is] a faithful God, and {without injustice}; righteous and upright [is] he.
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They [have] behaved corruptly toward him; [they are] not his children; [this is] their flaw, a generation crooked and perverse.
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[Like] this do you treat Yahweh, foolish and {unwise} people? [Has] he not, your father, created you? He made you, and he established you.
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Remember [the] old days, {the years long past}; ask your father, and he will inform you, your elders and they will tell you.
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{When the Most High apportioned} [the] nations, at his dividing [up] of the sons of humankind, he fixed the boundaries of [the] peoples, according to the number of the children of Israel.
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For Yahweh's portion [was] his people, Jacob the share of his inheritance.
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He found him in a desert land, and in a howling, desert wasteland; he {encircled him}, he cared for him, he protected him like the {apple} of his eye.
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As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreads out its wings, takes them, carries them on its pinions,
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[so] Yahweh alone guided him, and {there was no foreign god accompanying him}.
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And he set him on the high places of [the] land, and he fed [him] the crops of [the] field, and he nursed him with honey from crags, and [with] oil from flinty rock,
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[With] curds from [the] herd, and [with] milk from [the] flock, with [the] fat of young rams, and rams, the offspring of Bashan, and with goats [along] with the finest kernels of wheat, and [from] the blood of grapes you drank fermented wine.
15
And Jeshurun grew fat, and he kicked; you grew fat, you bloated, and you became obstinate; and he abandoned God, his maker, and he scoffed [at] the rock of his salvation.
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They made him jealous with strange [gods]; with detestable things they provoked him.
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They sacrificed to the demons, not God, [to] gods whom they had not known, new [gods] [who] came from recent times; {their ancestors had not known them}.
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[The] rock who bore you, you neglected, and you forgot God, [the one] giving you birth.
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Then Yahweh saw, and he spurned [them], because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
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So he said, 'I will hide my face from them; I will see what [will be] their end, for they [are] a generation of perversity, {children in whom there is no faithfulness}.
21
They annoyed me with [what is] not a god; they provoked me with their idols. So I will make them jealous with [those] not a people, with a foolish nation I will provoke them.
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For a fire was kindled by my anger, and it burned {up to the depths of Sheol}, and it devoured [the] earth and its produce, and it set afire the foundation of [the] mountains.
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I will heap disasters upon them; my arrows I will spend on them.
24
[They will become] weakened by famine, and consumed by plague and bitter pestilence; and the teeth of wild animals I will send against them, with [the] poison of [the] creeping [things] in [the] dust;
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From outside [her boundaries] the sword will make [her] childless, and from inside, terror; both [for] [the] young man [and] also the young woman, the infant [along with] the gray-headed man.
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I thought, "I will wipe them out; {I will make people forget they ever existed}."
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If I had not feared a provocation of [the] enemy, lest their foes might misunderstand, lest they should say, "Our hand is {triumphant}, and Yahweh [did] not do all this." '
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For {they are a nation void of sense}, and there is not [any] understanding in them.
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If only they were wise, they would understand this; they would discern {for themselves their end}.
30
How could one chase a thousand and two could cause a myriad to flee, if their Rock had not sold them, and Yahweh had [not] given them up?
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For the fact of the matter is, their rock [is] not like our Rock, and our enemies recognize [this].
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For their vine [is] from the vine of Sodom, and from the terraces of Gomorrah; their grapes [are] grapes of poison; {their clusters are bitter}.
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Their wine [is] the poison of snakes, and [the] deadly poison of horned vipers.
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'[Is] not this stored up with me, sealed in my treasuries?'
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{Vengeance belongs to me} and [also] recompense, {for at the time their foot slips}, because the day of their disaster [is] near, {and fate comes quickly for them}.'
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For Yahweh will judge [on behalf of] his people, and concerning his servants; he will change his mind when he sees that [their] power has disappeared, and [there is] no one left, confined or free.
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And he will say, 'Where [are] their gods, [their] rock in whom they took refuge?
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Who ate the fat of their sacrifices [and] drank the wine of their libations? Let them rise [up], and let them help you; {Let them be to you a refuge}.
39
See, now, that I, [even] I [am] he, and there is not a god besides me; I put to death and I give life; I wound and I heal; there is not [one] who delivers from my hand!
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For [indeed] I lift up my hand to heaven, And I promise {as I live forever},
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When I sharpen {my flashing sword}, and my hand takes hold [of it] in judgment, {I will take reprisals against my foes}, and my haters I will repay.
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I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh with the blood of the slain, and captives from the heads of the leaders of [the] enemy.'
43
Call for songs of joy, O nations, [concerning] his people, for the blood of his servants he will avenge, {and he will take reprisals against his foes}, and he will make atonement [for] his land, his people."
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And Moses came, and he spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people; [that is], he and Joshua the son of Nun.
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{And when Moses finished speaking} all these words to all Israel,
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then he said to them, "{Take to heart all the words} that I [am] admonishing [against] you {today} [concerning] which you should instruct them [with respect to] your children {so that they will observe diligently} all the words of this law,
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for it [is] not a trifling matter among you, but it [is] your life, and through this word {you will live long in the land} that you [are about] to cross the Jordan [to get] there to take possession of it."