Deuteronomy

¹ Attention, Earth, I've got a mouth full of words.

² my words arrive like morning dew, Like a sprinkling rain on new grass, like spring showers on the garden.

³ respond to the greatness of our God!

⁴ and the way he works is fair and just; A God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God.

⁵ throw mud at him but none of it sticks.

⁶ This is crazy; don't you have any sense of reverence? Isn't this your father who created you, who made you and gave you a place on Earth?

⁷ dig into the past, understand your roots. Ask your parents what it was like before you were born; ask the old-ones, they'll tell you a thing or two.

⁸ gave them their place on Earth, He put each of the peoples within boundaries under the care of divine guardians.

⁹ took Jacob on as his personal concern.

¹⁰ in an empty, windswept wasteland. He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him, guarding him as the apple of his eye.

¹¹ overshadowing its young, Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly.

¹² there was not a foreign god in sight.

¹³ so he could feast on the crops in the fields. He fed him honey from the rock, oil from granite crags,

¹⁴ the choice cuts of lambs and goats, Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat, and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!

¹⁵ you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard. He abandoned the God who made him, he mocked the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶ and with obscenities they vexed him no end.

¹⁷ gods they knew nothing about, The latest in gods, fresh from the market, gods your ancestors would never call "gods."

¹⁸ forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.

¹⁹ angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.

²⁰ Wait and see what happens to them. Oh, they're a turned-around, upside-down generation! Who knows what they'll do from one moment to the next?

²¹ infuriated me with their hot-air gods; I'm going to goad them with a no-people, with a hollow nation incense them.

²² a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol, Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops, setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire.

²³ I'll shoot my arrows at them:

²⁴ I'll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.

²⁵ terror in the houses, Young men and virgins alike struck down, and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men."

²⁶ wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,"

²⁷ to take credit for all of it, Crowing, "Look what we did! God had nothing to do with this."

²⁸ they don't know enough to come in out of the rain.

²⁹ they would see what's coming down the road.

³⁰ or two men run off two thousand, Unless their Rock had sold them, unless God had given them away?

³¹ even our enemies say that.

³² who they are is rooted in Gomorrah; Their grapes are poison grapes, their grape-clusters bitter.

³³ mixed with lethal cobra poison.

³⁴ well stocked, locked behind iron doors?

³⁵ just waiting for them to slip up; And the day of their doom is just around the corner, sudden and swift and sure.

³⁶ but oh how compassionately he'll do it. When he sees their weakened plight and there is no one left, slave or free,

³⁷ the rock in which they sought refuge,

³⁸ and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? Let them show their stuff and help you, let them give you a hand!

³⁹ Do you see that there's no other god beside me? I bring death and I give life, I wound and I heal— there is no getting away from or around me!

⁴⁰ I say, 'I'm always around. By that very life I promise:

⁴¹ and execute judgment, I take vengeance on my enemies and pay back those who hate me.

⁴² my sword will gorge itself on flesh, Feasting on slain and captive alike, the proud and vain enemy corpses.' "

⁴³ He avenges the deaths of his servants, Pays back his enemies with vengeance, and cleanses his land for his people.

⁴⁴ Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun.

⁴⁵ When Moses had finished saying all these words to all Israel,

⁴⁶ he said, "Take to heart all these words to which I give witness today and urgently command your children to put them into practice, every single word of this Revelation.

⁴⁷ Yes. This is no small matter for you; it's your life. In keeping this word you'll have a good and long life in this land that you're crossing the Jordan to possess."

⁴⁸ That same day God spoke to Moses:

⁴⁹ "Climb the Abarim Mountains to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, overlooking Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I'm giving the People of Israel to have and hold.

⁵⁰ Die on the mountain that you climb and join your people in the ground, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people.

⁵¹ "This is because you broke faith with me in the company of the People of Israel at the Waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin—you didn't honor my Holy Presence in the company of the People of Israel.

⁵² You'll look at the land spread out before you but you won't enter it, this land that I am giving to the People of Israel."