The Song of Moses (Revelation 15:1–4)
1 UST “Listen to me, all you who are in the heavens, let me sing{ this song}, all you who are on the earth,{ do the same:} listen to what I sing. BSB BSB: Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2 UST I wish that my song may help you like the rain helps you, may it refresh you like the dew on the ground in the morning, like a gentle rain on the young plants, or 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 UST { This song will refresh you if you listen to it} because I will praise Yahweh. 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 UST He is like a rock on top of which we are safe; everything that he does is perfect and completely just. He always does what he says that he will do, and he never breaks his promises; he always does the right thing. 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 UST 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 UST You foolish and senseless people, this is certainly not 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 UST Think about what happened long ago by considering 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 UST Long ago when the Greatest God divided humanity into people groups and gave them their lands, he set their boundaries according to the number of Jacob’ s descendants, 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 UST because Yahweh decided that we would be his people. He chose us, Jacob’ s descendants, to belong to him. BSB BSB: But the LORD’s portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance.
10 UST 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 UST Yahweh trained and 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 UST 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 UST 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 UST Their cows produced very creamy milk, the sheep and goats gave them plenty of milk, they ate choice lamb fat, Bashan- bred rams, and goats, they had choice wheat kernels, and they made and drank 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 UST The Israelites became so rich and prosperous that they became very fat, but then they rebelled against God; they abandoned him, the one who created them. They disregarded the God 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 UST The Israelites made God jealous by worshiping other gods. Because they did disgusting things while worshiping idols, he became angry. BSB BSB: They provoked His jealousy with foreign gods; they enraged Him with abominations.
17 UST They offered sacrifices to gods who were really demons instead of sacrificing to God, to gods that they had not known before. They offered sacrifices to gods that they had recently found out about, to gods whom your ancestors had never been afraid of. 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 UST They ignored their Protector who created them, forgetting the{ true} God who made them{ a nation}. BSB BSB: You ignored the Rock who brought you forth; you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19 UST When Yahweh saw{ that they had abandoned him}, he became angry, so he rejected the Israelites 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 UST 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 UST Because they worship worthless idols that are not real gods, they have made me angry like a jealous husband. So I will make them angry in return by using a foolish nation that is not really a 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 UST My anger is like a fierce fire that burns in my nostrils; it will burn all the way down to the place where dead people are. That fire will destroy the land and the crops, it will even burn deep 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 UST I will cause so many disasters to happen to them that they will feel like I am shooting all my arrows into them. BSB BSB: I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them.
24 UST 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 UST Outside their houses, their enemies will kill them with swords, and in their homes, their enemies will terrify them. 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 UST I almost completely destroyed them 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 UST But I worried that if I did that, their enemies would boast. They would think the wrong thing. I did not want them to say,“We are the stronger than the Israelites; it was us, not Yahweh who destroyed them.”’ 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 UST You 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 UST If you were wise, you would understand why I would punish you; 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 UST You would have realized why one soldier could defeat a thousand soldiers, and why two soldiers could chase away ten thousand soldiers. You would realize that this could happen only if the Israelites’ Protector, Yahweh, had given their enemies power to defeat them. 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 UST Even our enemies know that their protector gods are not like our Protector God. BSB BSB: For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies concede.
32 UST Their gods are as deeply evil as those of Sodom and Gomorrah, so those who worship them are bitter and toxic, 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 UST they love celebrating things as deadly as snakes’ poison. BSB BSB: Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.
34 UST Yahweh says,‘The things I will do to punish them, I have kept hidden with me, protected like a treasure. BSB BSB: “Have I not stored up these things, sealed up within My vaults?
35 UST It is for me to punish and to pay back. When everything sudden goes wrong I am starting to destroy them. I am prepared to 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 UST Yahweh will see that his people are helpless and that almost no one remains— neither prisoner nor free person. Then he will pity his servants and judge on behalf of them. 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 UST 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 UST 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 take action to 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 UST But now you will realize that I, only I, am God; there is no other god who is a real god. I alone can kill people and can cause people to live; I can wound people, and I alone 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 UST I solemnly swear that just as surely 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 UST I will prepare to judge my enemies like a warrior sharpens his sword until it shines. I will strike my enemies back by repaying those who hate me for what they have done. 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 UST The arrows{ of the army that I send to destroy my enemies} will have so much blood on them that it would make them drunk if it were wine and they were people. Their swords will kill a lot of people. The blood will come from enemies that they kill or that they wound and capture, some will come from the enemies’ leaders’ 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 UST Everyone joyfully praise Yahweh, 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 UST Moses and Joshua son of Nun sang that song while the Israelites listened. 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 UST Then Moses finished telling all the Israelites all Yahweh’ s instructions. BSB BSB: When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel,
46 UST He concluded by telling them,“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 UST 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.”
Moses’ Death Foretold 48 UST On that same day, Yahweh said to Moses, BSB BSB: On that same day the LORD said to Moses,
49 UST “Go to the Abarim mountain range here in the region of Moab, across from the city of Jericho. Climb Mount Nebo and look{ toward the west} to see Canaan, the land that I am about to give to the Israelites. 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 UST You will die on the mountain after you go up. You will join your people{ in the place where dead people stay}, just like your older brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and went to join your people{ in the place where dead people stay}. 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 UST You will die because both of you disobeyed me in the presence of the Israelites, 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 Israelites 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 UST 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 Israelites, 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.