Chronological Plan

¹Pay attention, heavens, and I will speak; listen, earth, to the words from my mouth.

²Let my teaching fall like rain and my word settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass and showers on tender plants.

³For I will proclaim the LORD’s name. Declare the greatness of our God!

⁴The Rock  — his work is perfect; all his ways are just. A faithful God, without bias, he is righteous and true.

⁵His people have acted corruptly toward him; this is their defect  — they are not his children but a devious and crooked generation.

⁶Is this how you repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Isn’t he your Father and Creator? Didn’t he make you and sustain you?

⁷Remember the days of old; consider the years of past generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you, your elders, and they will teach you.

⁸When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance and divided the human race, he set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the people of Israel.

⁹But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob, his own inheritance.

¹⁰He found him in a desolate land, in a barren, howling wilderness; he surrounded him, cared for him, and protected him as the pupil of his eye.

¹¹He watches over his nest like an eagle and hovers over his young; he spreads his wings, catches him, and carries him on his feathers.

¹²The LORD alone led him, with no help from a foreign god.

¹³He made him ride on the heights of the land and eat the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from flinty rock,

¹⁴curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat; you drank wine from the finest grapes.

¹⁵Then Jeshurun became fat and rebelled — you became fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They provoked his jealousy with different gods; they enraged him with detestable practices.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, not God, to gods they had not known, new gods that had just arrived, which your fathers did not fear.

¹⁸You ignored the Rock who gave you birth; you forgot the God who gave birth to you.

¹⁹When the LORD saw this, he despised them, angered by his sons and daughters.

²⁰He said: “I will hide my face from them; I will see what will become of them, for they are a perverse generation — unfaithful children.

²¹They have provoked my jealousy with what is not a god; they have enraged me with their worthless idols. So I will provoke their jealousy with what is not a people; I will enrage them with a foolish nation.

²²For fire has been kindled because of my anger and burns to the depths of Sheol; it devours the land and its produce, and scorches the foundations of the mountains.

²³“I will pile disasters on them; I will use up my arrows against them.

²⁴They will be weak from hunger, ravaged by pestilence and bitter plague; I will unleash on them wild beasts with fangs, as well as venomous snakes that slither in the dust.

²⁵Outside, the sword will take their children, and inside, there will be terror; the young man and the young woman will be killed, the infant and the gray-haired man.

²⁶“I would have said: I will cut them to pieces and blot out the memory of them from mankind,

²⁷if I had not feared provocation from the enemy, or feared that these foes might misunderstand and say: ‘Our own hand has prevailed; it wasn’t the LORD who did all this.’”

²⁸Israel is a nation lacking sense with no understanding at all.

²⁹If only they were wise, they would comprehend this; they would understand their fate.

³⁰How could one pursue a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

³¹But their “rock” is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede.

³²For their vine is from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poisonous; their clusters are bitter.

³³Their wine is serpents’ venom, the deadly poison of cobras.

³⁴“Is it not stored up with me, sealed up in my vaults?

³⁵Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay. In time their foot will slip, for their day of disaster is near, and their doom is coming quickly.”

³⁶The LORD will indeed vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants when he sees that their strength is gone and no one is left — slave or free.

³⁷He will say: “Where are their gods, the ‘rock’ they found refuge in?

³⁸Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up and help you; let it be a shelter for you.

³⁹See now that I alone am he; there is no God but me. I bring death and I give life; I wound and I heal. No one can rescue anyone from my power.

⁴⁰I raise my hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever,

⁴¹when I sharpen my flashing sword, and my hand takes hold of judgment, I will take vengeance on my adversaries and repay those who hate me.

⁴²I will make my arrows drunk with blood while my sword devours flesh — the blood of the slain and the captives, the heads of the enemy leaders.”

⁴³Rejoice, you nations, concerning his people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants. He will take vengeance on his adversaries; he will purify his land and his people.

⁴⁴Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song in the presence of the people.

⁴⁵After Moses finished reciting all these words to all Israel,

⁴⁶he said to them, “Take to heart all these words I am giving as a warning to you today, so that you may command your children to follow all the words of this law carefully.

⁴⁷For they are not meaningless words to you but they are your life, and by them you will live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to possess.”

⁴⁸On that same day the LORD spoke to Moses,

⁴⁹“Go up Mount Nebo in the Abarim range in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan I am giving the Israelites as a possession.

⁵⁰Then you will die on the mountain that you go up, and you will be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.

⁵¹For both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the Waters of Meribath-kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin by failing to treat me as holy in their presence.

⁵²Although from a distance you will view the land that I am giving the Israelites, you will not go there.”

¹This is the blessing that Moses, the man of God, gave the Israelites before his death.

²He said: The LORD came from Sinai and appeared to them from Seir; he shone on them from Mount Paran and came with ten thousand holy ones, with lightning from his right hand for them.

³Indeed he loves the people. All your holy ones are in your hand, and they assemble at your feet. Each receives your words.

⁴Moses gave us instruction, a possession for the assembly of Jacob.

⁵So he became King in Jeshurun when the leaders of the people gathered with the tribes of Israel.

⁶Let Reuben live and not die though his people become few.

⁷He said this about Judah: LORD, hear Judah’s cry and bring him to his people. He fights for his cause with his own hands, but may you be a help against his foes.

⁸He said about Levi: Your Thummim and Urim belong to your faithful one; you tested him at Massah and contended with him at the Waters of Meribah.

⁹He said about his father and mother, “I do not regard them.” He disregarded his brothers and didn’t acknowledge his sons, for they kept your word and maintained your covenant.

¹⁰They will teach your ordinances to Jacob and your instruction to Israel; they will set incense before you and whole burnt offerings on your altar.

¹¹LORD, bless his possessions, and accept the work of his hands. Break the back of his adversaries and enemies, so that they cannot rise again.

¹²He said about Benjamin: The LORD’s beloved rests securely on him. He shields him all day long, and he rests on his shoulders.

¹³He said about Joseph: May his land be blessed by the LORD with the dew of heaven’s bounty and the watery depths that lie beneath;

¹⁴with the bountiful harvest from the sun and the abundant yield of the seasons;

¹⁵with the best products of the ancient mountains and the bounty of the eternal hills;

¹⁶with the choice gifts of the land and everything in it; and with the favor of him who appeared in the burning bush. May these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince of his brothers.

¹⁷His firstborn bull has splendor, and horns like those of a wild ox; he gores all the peoples with them to the ends of the earth. Such are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh.

¹⁸He said about Zebulun: Rejoice, Zebulun, in your journeys, and Issachar, in your tents.

¹⁹They summon the peoples to a mountain; there they offer acceptable sacrifices. For they draw from the wealth of the seas and the hidden treasures of the sand.

²⁰He said about Gad: The one who enlarges Gad’s territory will be blessed. He lies down like a lion and tears off an arm or even a head.

²¹He chose the best part for himself, because a ruler’s portion was assigned there for him. He came with the leaders of the people; he carried out the LORD’s justice and his ordinances for Israel.

²²He said about Dan: Dan is a young lion, leaping out of Bashan.

²³He said about Naphtali: Naphtali, enjoying approval, full of the LORD’s blessing, take possession to the west and the south.

²⁴He said about Asher: May Asher be the most blessed of the sons; may he be the most favored among his brothers and dip his foot in olive oil.

²⁵May the bolts of your gate be iron and bronze, and your strength last as long as you live.

²⁶There is none like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to your aid, the clouds in his majesty.

²⁷The God of old is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He drives out the enemy before you and commands, “Destroy!”

²⁸So Israel dwells securely; Jacob lives untroubled in a land of grain and new wine; even his skies drip with dew.

²⁹How happy you are, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is the shield that protects you, the sword you boast in. Your enemies will cringe before you, and you will tread on their backs.

¹Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which faces Jericho, and the LORD showed him all the land: Gilead as far as Dan,

²all of Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea,

³the Negev, and the plain in the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar.

⁴The LORD then said to him, “This is the land I promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross into it.”

⁵So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the LORD’s word.

⁶He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab facing Beth-peor, and no one to this day knows where his grave is.

⁷Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died; his eyes were not weak, and his vitality had not left him.

⁸The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days. Then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.

⁹Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites obeyed him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses.

¹⁰No prophet has arisen again in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.

¹¹He was unparalleled for all the signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do against the land of Egypt — to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to all his land,

¹²and for all the mighty acts of power and terrifying deeds that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.