Chronological Plan

¹“Listen, you heavens, and I will speak; And let the earth hear the words of my mouth!

²May my teaching drip as the rain, My speech trickle as the dew, As droplets on the fresh grass, And as the showers on the vegetation.

³For I proclaim the name of the LORD; Ascribe greatness to our God!

⁴The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and just is He.

⁵They have acted corruptly against Him, They are not His children, because of their defect; But are a perverse and crooked generation.

⁶Is this what you do to the LORD, You foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father who has purchased you? He has made you and established you.

⁷Remember the days of old, Consider the years of all generations. Ask your father and he will inform you, Your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, When He separated the sons of mankind, He set the boundaries of the peoples According to the number of the sons of Israel.

⁹For the LORD’S portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance.

¹⁰He found him in a desert land, And in the howling wasteland of a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the apple of His eye.

¹¹As an eagle stirs up its nest, And hovers over its young, He spread His wings, He caught them, He carried them on His pinions.

¹²The LORD alone guided him, And there was no foreign god with him.

¹³He had him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the produce of the field; And He had him suck honey from the rock, And oil from the flinty rock,

¹⁴Curds of the herd, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs And rams, the breed of Bashan, and of goats, With the best of the wheat; And you drank wine of the blood of grapes.

¹⁵“But Jeshurun became fat and kicked— You have become fat, thick, and obstinate— Then he abandoned God who made him, And rejected the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶They made Him jealous with strange gods; With abominations they provoked Him to anger.

¹⁷They sacrificed to demons, who were not God, To gods whom they have not known, New gods who came lately, Whom your fathers did not know.

¹⁸You forgot the Rock who fathered you, And forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹“The LORD saw this, and spurned them Because of the provocation by His sons and daughters.

²⁰Then He said, ‘I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; For they are a perverse generation, Sons in whom there is no faithfulness.

²¹They have made Me jealous with what is not God; They have provoked Me to anger with their idols. So I will make them jealous with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation,

²²For a fire has flared in My anger, And it burns to the lowest part of Sheol, And devours the earth with its yield, And sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³‘I will add misfortunes to them; I will use up My arrows on them.

²⁴They will be wasted by famine, and emaciated by plague And a bitter epidemic; And the teeth of beasts I will send against them, With the venom of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵Outside the sword will make them childless, And inside, terror— Both young man and virgin, The nursing child with the man of gray hair.

²⁶I would have said, “I will wipe them out, I will remove the mention of their name from humanity,”

²⁷Had I not feared the provocation by the enemy, That their adversaries would misjudge, That they would say, “Our hand is triumphant, And the LORD has not performed all this.” ’

²⁸“For they are a nation destitute of counsel, And there is no understanding in them.

²⁹If only they were wise and they understood this; If only they would discern their future!

³⁰How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the LORD had given them up?

³¹Indeed, their rock is not like our Rock; Even our enemies themselves judge this.

³²For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, And from the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes are grapes of poison, Their clusters, bitter.

³³Their wine is the venom of serpents, And the deadly poison of vipers.

³⁴‘Is it not stored up with Me, Sealed up in My treasuries?

³⁵Vengeance is Mine, and retribution; In due time their foot will slip. For the day of their disaster is near, And the impending things are hurrying to them.’

³⁶For the LORD will vindicate His people, And will have compassion on His servants, When He sees that their strength is gone, And there is none remaining, bond or free.

³⁷And He will say, ‘Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge?

³⁸Those who ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, Let them be your protection!

³⁹See now that I, I am He, And there is no god besides Me; It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal, And there is no one who can save anyone from My hand.

⁴⁰Indeed, I raise My hand to heaven, And say, as I live forever,

⁴¹If I have sharpened My flashing sword, And My hand has taken hold of justice, I will return vengeance on My adversaries, And I will repay those who hate Me.

⁴²I will make My arrows drunk with blood, And My sword will devour flesh, With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the long-haired leaders of the enemy.’

⁴³Rejoice, you nations, with His people; For He will avenge the blood of His servants, And will return vengeance on His adversaries, And will atone for His land and His people.”

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

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

⁴⁶he said to them, “Take to your heart all the words with which I am warning you today, which you will command your sons to follow carefully, all the words of this Law.

⁴⁷For it is not a trivial matter for you; indeed it is your life. And by this word you will prolong your days in the land, which you are about to cross the Jordan to possess.”

⁴⁸Now the LORD spoke to Moses that very same day, saying,

⁴⁹“Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel as a possession.

⁵⁰Then you are to die on the mountain where you ascend, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,

⁵¹because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not treat Me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel.

⁵²For you will see the land at a distance but you will not go there, into the land which I am giving the sons of Israel.”

¹Now this is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the sons of Israel before his death.

²He said, “The LORD came from Sinai, And dawned on them from Seir; He shone from Mount Paran, And He came from the midst of myriads of holy ones; At His right hand there was flashing lightning for them.

³Indeed, He loves the people; All Your holy ones are in Your hand, And they followed in Your steps; Everyone takes of Your words.

⁴Moses issued to us the Law, A possession for the assembly of Jacob.

⁵And He was king in Jeshurun, When the heads of the people gathered, The tribes of Israel together.

⁶“May Reuben live and not die, Nor may his people be few.”

⁷And this was regarding Judah; so he said: “Hear, LORD, the voice of Judah, And bring him to his people. With his hands he contended for them, And may You be a help against his adversaries.”

⁸Of Levi he said, “Let Your Thummim and Your Urim belong to Your godly man, Whom You tested at Massah, With whom You contended at the waters of Meribah;

⁹Who said of his father and his mother, ‘I did not consider them’; And he did not acknowledge his brothers, Nor did he regard his own sons, For they kept Your word, And complied with Your covenant.

¹⁰They will teach Your ordinances to Jacob, And Your Law to Israel. They shall put incense before You, And whole burnt offerings on Your altar.

¹¹LORD, bless his strength, And accept the work of his hands; Smash the hips of those who rise up against him, And those who hate him, so that they do not rise again.”

¹²Of Benjamin he said, “May the beloved of the LORD live in security beside Him Who shields him all the day long, And he lives between His shoulders.”

¹³Of Joseph he said, “Blessed of the LORD be his land, With the choice things of heaven, with the dew, And from the deep waters lying beneath,

¹⁴And with the choice yield of the sun, And the choice produce of the months;

¹⁵And with the best things of the ancient mountains, With the choice things of the everlasting hills,

¹⁶And with the choice things of the earth and its fullness, And the favor of Him who dwelt in the bush. Let it come to the head of Joseph, And to the top of the head of the one who was prince among his brothers.

¹⁷As the firstborn of his ox, majesty is his, And his horns are the horns of the wild ox; With them he will gore the peoples All at once, to the ends of the earth. And those are the ten thousands of Ephraim, And those are the thousands of Manasseh.”

¹⁸Of Zebulun he said, “Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out, And, Issachar, in your tents.

¹⁹They will call peoples to the mountain; There they will offer righteous sacrifices; For they will draw out the abundance of the seas, And the hidden treasures of the sand.”

²⁰Of Gad he said, “Blessed is the one who enlarges Gad; He lies down as a lion, And tears the arm, also the crown of the head.

²¹Then he selected the choicest part for himself, For there the ruler’s portion was reserved; And he came with the leaders of the people; He executed the justice of the LORD, And His ordinances with Israel.”

²²Of Dan he said, “Dan is a lion’s cub; He leaps out from Bashan.”

²³Of Naphtali he said, “Naphtali, satisfied with favor, And full of the blessing of the LORD, Take possession of the sea and the south.”

²⁴Of Asher he said, “More blessed than sons is Asher; May he be favored by his brothers, And may he dip his foot in olive oil.

²⁵Your bars will be iron and bronze, And as your days, so will your strength be.

²⁶“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, And the clouds in His majesty.

²⁷The eternal God is a hiding place, And underneath are the everlasting arms; And He drove out the enemy from you, And said, ‘Destroy!’

²⁸So Israel lives in security, The fountain of Jacob secluded, In a land of grain and new wine; His heavens also drip down dew.

²⁹Blessed are you, Israel; Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD, The shield of your help, And He who is the sword of your majesty! So your enemies will cringe before you, And you will trample on their high places.”

¹Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan,

²and all Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah as far as the western sea,

³and the Negev and the territory in the Valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.

⁴Then the LORD said to him, “This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘I will give it to your descendants’; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not go over there.”

⁵So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, in accordance with the word of the LORD.

⁶And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows his burial place to this day.

⁷Although Moses was 120 years old when he died, his eyesight was not dim, nor had his vigor left him.

⁸So the sons of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days; then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses came to an end.

⁹Now Joshua the son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the sons of Israel listened to him and did as the LORD had commanded Moses.

¹⁰Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

¹¹for all the signs and wonders which the LORD sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land—

¹²and for all the mighty power and all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.