1 ARST “Listen to me, all you who are in the heavens, and all you who are on the earth, listen to what I say. BSB BSB: Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 ARST I wish that my song may help you like the rain helps you, or like the dew on the ground in the morning, or like a gentle rain on the young plants, like showers of rain on the grass. BSB BSB: Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.
3 ARST I will praise Yahweh. And all you people should praise how great our God is. BSB BSB: For I will proclaim the name of the LORD. Ascribe greatness to our God!
4 ARST He is like a rock on top of which we are protected; everything that he does is perfect and completely just. He always does what he says that he will do; he never does anything that is wrong. BSB BSB: He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
5 ARST But you Israelite people have been very unfaithful to him; because of your sins, you no longer deserve to be his children. You are extremely wicked and deceitful. BSB BSB: His people have acted corruptly toward Him; the blemish on them is not that of His children, but of a perverse and crooked generation.
6 ARST You foolish and senseless people, is this the way that you should repay Yahweh for all that he has done for you? He is your father; he created you; he caused you to become a nation. BSB BSB: Is this how you repay the LORD, O foolish and senseless people? Is He not your Father and Creator? Has He not made you and established you?
7 ARST Think about what happened long ago; consider what happened to your ancestors. Ask your parents, and they will inform you; ask the older people, and they will tell you. BSB BSB: Remember the days of old; consider the years long past. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will inform you.
8 ARST When God, who is greater than any other god, long ago divided the people into groups, he assigned to the nations their land. He determined where each people group should live and limited to each people group their own gods. BSB BSB: When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.
9 ARST But Yahweh decided that we would be his people; he chose us, the descendants of Jacob, to belong to him. BSB BSB: But the LORD’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.
10 ARST He saw our ancestors when they were in a desert, wandering in a land that was desolate. He protected them and took care of them, as every person takes good care of his own eyes. BSB BSB: He found him in a desert land, in a barren, howling wilderness; He surrounded him, He instructed him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.
11 ARST Yahweh protected his people just like an eagle encourages its babies to fly and flutters over them, spreading its wings and catching them if they start to fall. BSB BSB: As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carried them on His pinions.
12 ARST Yahweh was the only one who led them; no other foreign god helped them. BSB BSB: The LORD alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.
13 ARST After they entered the land that Yahweh promised to give to them, Yahweh enabled them to rule the hill country; they ate the crops that grew in the fields. They found honey in the rocks, and their olive trees grew even in stony ground. BSB BSB: He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,
14 ARST The cows gave them plenty of curds; the goats gave them plenty of milk, they had well fed sheep and cattle, they had very good wheat, and they made delicious wine from their grapes. BSB BSB: with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.
15 ARST The Israelite people became rich and prosperous, but then they rebelled against God; they abandoned him, the one who created them, the one who powerfully saves them. BSB BSB: But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.
16 ARST He abandoned them because they started to worship other gods. Because of their worshiping disgusting idols, he became angry. BSB BSB: They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.
17 ARST They offered sacrifices to gods who were really demons, gods that their ancestors had never known; they offered sacrifices to gods that they had recently found out about, gods whom your ancestors had never had any respect for. BSB BSB: They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they had not known, to newly arrived gods, which your fathers did not fear.
18 ARST They forgot the true God, the one who protects them, the one who created them and caused them to live. BSB BSB: You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 ARST When Yahweh saw that they had abandoned him, he became angry, so he rejected the Israelite people who were like his sons and daughters. BSB BSB: When the LORD saw this, He rejected them, provoked to anger by His sons and daughters.
20 ARST He said,‘They are very wicked people, very unfaithful; so I will no longer help them, and then I will watch and see what happens to them. BSB BSB: He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness.
21 ARST Because they now are worshiping idols, which are not really gods, they have caused me to be like a jealous husband because I want them to worship only me. So now, in order to cause them to become angry, I will now send to attack them an army of a nation of worthless and foolish people. BSB BSB: They have provoked My jealousy by that which is not God; they have enraged Me with their worthless idols. So I will make them jealous by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation without understanding.
22 ARST I will be very angry, and I will destroy them like a fire that will burn all the way down to the place where dead people are; that fire will destroy the earth and everything that grows on it, and it will even burn what is down under the mountains. BSB BSB: For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol; it consumes the earth and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.
23 ARST I will pile up on them many disasters; they will feel as though I am shooting all my arrows on them. BSB BSB: I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.
24 ARST They will die because of being hungry and because of having hot fevers and because of terrible diseases; I will send wild animals to attack them, and poisonous snakes to bite them. BSB BSB: They will be wasted from hunger and ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will send the fangs of wild beasts against them, with the venom of vipers that slither in the dust.
25 ARST Outside their houses, their enemies will kill them with swords, and in their homes, their enemies will cause them to be terrified. Their enemies will kill young men and young women, and they will kill infants and old people with gray hair. BSB BSB: Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, terror will strike the young man and the young woman, the infant and the gray-haired man.
26 ARST I wanted only to scatter them to distant countries in order that no one would ever remember them. BSB BSB: I would have said that I would cut them to pieces and blot out their memory from mankind,
27 ARST But if I did that, their enemies would wrongly boast that they were the ones who had gotten rid of my people; they would say,“We are the ones who defeated them; it was not Yahweh who has done all these things.”’ BSB BSB: if I had not dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest their adversaries misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it was not the LORD who did all this.’”
28 ARST You Israelites are a nation of people who do not have any sense. None of you are wise. BSB BSB: Israel is a nation devoid of counsel, with no understanding among them.
29 ARST If you were wise, you would understand why you would be punished; you would have realized what was going to happen to you. BSB BSB: If only they were wise, they would understand it; they would comprehend their fate.
30 ARST You would have realized why a thousand of your soldiers would be defeated by only one of the enemy soldiers, and why two of your enemies would chase away ten thousand Israelite soldiers. You would realize that this would happen only if God, the one who always defended you, had put you in the hands of your enemies, that Yahweh had abandoned you. BSB BSB: How could one man pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?
31 ARST Your enemies know that their gods are not powerful like Yahweh, our God, so their gods could not have defeated us Israelites. BSB BSB: For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies concede.
32 ARST Your enemies are like grapevines planted near the ruins of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah; the grapes from those vines are bitter and poisonous. BSB BSB: But their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.
33 ARST The wine from those grapes is like the poison of snakes. BSB BSB: Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.
34 ARST Yahweh says,‘I know what I have planned to do to the Israelite people and to their enemies, and I have locked up those plans as someone would lock up his valuable possessions. BSB BSB: “Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?
35 ARST I am the one who will get revenge and pay those enemies back for what they have done to my people, at the right time for them to be punished; they will soon experience disasters, and I will punish them quickly.’ BSB BSB: Vengeance is Mine; I will repay. In due time their foot will slip; for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”
36 ARST But Yahweh will say that you who are truly his people are innocent, and he will act mercifully toward you who serve him, when he sees that you are helpless, and that there are very few of you, slaves or free people, who are still alive. BSB BSB: For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
37 ARST Then Yahweh will ask you,‘Where are the gods that you thought would protect you? BSB BSB: He will say: “Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,
38 ARST You gave to those gods the best parts of the animals that you sacrificed, and you poured out wine for them to drink. So they should rise and help you; they should be the ones who will protect you! BSB BSB: which ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let them give you shelter!
39 ARST But now you will realize that I, only I, am God; there is no other god who is a real god. I am the one who can kill people and who can cause people to live; I can wound people, and I can heal people, and there is no one who can prevent me from doing those things. BSB BSB: See now that I am He; there is no God besides Me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.
40 ARST I raise my hand toward heaven and solemnly declare that just as sure as I live forever, I will act. BSB BSB: For I lift up My hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,
41 ARST When I sharpen my sword and prepare to punish people, I will get revenge on my enemies, and I will pay back those who hate me. BSB BSB: when I sharpen My flashing sword, and My hand grasps it in judgment, I will take vengeance on My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.
42 ARST I will kill all of my enemies with a sword; it will be as though I had arrows that were covered with their blood. I will kill all those whom I capture and cut off their heads.’ BSB BSB: I will make My arrows drunk with blood, while My sword devours flesh—the blood of the slain and captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”
43 ARST You people of all nations, you should praise Yahweh’ s people, because Yahweh gets revenge on those who kill the people who serve him, and he cleanses his people’ s land which has become defiled because of their sins.” BSB BSB: Rejoice, O heavens, with Him, and let all God’s angels worship Him. Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His children. He will take vengeance on His adversaries and repay those who hate Him; He will cleanse His land and His people.
44 ARST Joshua and Moses sang that song while the Israelite people were listening. BSB BSB: Then Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people.
45 ARST Then they finished singing to them this song. BSB BSB: When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
46 ARST Moses said,“Never forget all these commands that I have been giving you today. Teach these laws to your children, in order that they will faithfully obey all of them. BSB BSB: he said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to carefully follow all the words of this law.
47 ARST These instructions are very important. If you obey them, you will live a long time in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan River to occupy.” BSB BSB: For they are not idle words to you, because they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”
48 ARST On that same day, Yahweh said to Moses, BSB BSB: On that same day the LORD said to Moses,
49 ARST “Go to the Abarim mountain range here in the region of Moab, across from Jericho. Climb Mount Nebo and look toward the west to see Canaan, the land that I am about to give to the Israelite people. BSB BSB: “Go up into the Abarim Range to Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites as their own possession.
50 ARST You will die on that mountain, like your older brother Aaron died on Mount Hor. BSB BSB: And there on the mountain that you climb, you will die and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.
51 ARST You will die because both of you disobeyed me in the presence of the Israelite people, when you all were at the springs of Meribah near Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. You did not honor and respect me in the presence of the Israelite people in the way that I deserve because I am God. BSB BSB: For at the waters of Meribah-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin, both of you broke faith with Me among the Israelites by failing to treat Me as holy in their presence.
52 ARST When you are on that mountain where I told you to go, you will see in the distance in front of you the land that I am about to give to the Israelite people, but you will not enter it.” BSB BSB: Although you shall see from a distance the land that I am giving the Israelites, you shall not enter it.”
Select verses for actions: Enter goes to them and Escape comes back.