The Charge

31 1-2 Moses went on and addressed these words to all Israel. He said, “I’m 120 years old today. I can’t get about as I used to. And God told me, ‘You’re not going to cross this Jordan River.’

3-5 God, your God, will cross the river ahead of you and destroy the nations in your path so that you may oust them. (And Joshua will cross the river before you, as God said he would.) God will give the nations the same treatment he gave the kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og, and their land; he’ll destroy them. God will hand the nations over to you, and you’ll treat them exactly as I have commanded you.

“Be strong. Take courage. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t give them a second thought because God, your God, is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you.”

7-8 Then Moses summoned Joshua. He said to him with all Israel watching, “Be strong. Take courage. You will enter the land with this people, this land that God promised their ancestors that he’d give them. You will make them the proud possessors of it. God is striding ahead of you. He’s right there with you. He won’t let you down; he won’t leave you. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t worry.”

* * *

9-13 Moses wrote out this Revelation and gave it to the priests, the sons of Levi, who carried the Chest of the Covenant of God, and to all the leaders of Israel. And he gave these orders: “At the end of every seven years, the Year-All-Debts-Are-Canceled, during the pilgrim Festival of Booths when everyone in Israel comes to appear in the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates, read out this Revelation to all Israel, with everyone listening. Gather the people together—men, women, children, and the foreigners living among you—so they can listen well, so they may learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, and diligently keep everything in this Revelation. And do this so that their children, who don’t yet know all this, will also listen and learn to live in holy awe before God, your God, for as long as you live on the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.”

14-15 God spoke to Moses: “You are about to die. So call Joshua. Meet me in the Tent of Meeting so that I can commission him.”

So Moses and Joshua went and stationed themselves in the Tent of Meeting. God appeared in the Tent in a Pillar of Cloud. The Cloud was near the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.

16-18 God spoke to Moses: “You’re about to die and be buried with your ancestors. You’ll no sooner be in the grave than this people will be up and lusting after the foreign gods of this country that they are entering. They will abandon me and violate my Covenant that I’ve made with them. I’ll get angry, oh so angry! I’ll walk off and leave them on their own, won’t so much as look back at them. Then many calamities and disasters will devastate them because they are defenseless. They’ll say, ‘Isn’t it because our God wasn’t here that all this evil has come upon us?’ But I’ll stay out of their lives, keep looking the other way because of all their evil: they took up with other gods!

19-21 “But for right now, copy down this song and teach the People of Israel to sing it by heart. They’ll have it then as my witness against them. When I bring them into the land that I promised to their ancestors, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they eat and become full and get fat and then begin fooling around with other gods and worshiping them, and then things start falling apart, many terrible things happening, this song will be there with them as a witness to who they are and what went wrong. Their children won’t forget this song; they’ll be singing it. Don’t think I don’t know what they are already scheming to do, and they’re not even in the land yet, this land I promised them.”

22 So Moses wrote down this song that very day and taught it to the People of Israel.

23 Then God commanded Joshua son of Nun saying, “Be strong. Take courage. You will lead the People of Israel into the land I promised to give them. And I’ll be right there with you.”

24-26 After Moses had finished writing down the words of this Revelation in a book, right down to the last word, he ordered the Levites who were responsible for carrying the Chest of the Covenant of God, saying, “Take this Book of Revelation and place it alongside the Chest of the Covenant of God, your God. Keep it there as a witness.

27-29 “I know what rebels you are, how stubborn and willful you can be. Even today, while I’m still alive and present with you, you’re rebellious against God. How much worse when I’ve died! So gather the leaders of the tribes and the officials here. I have something I need to say directly to them with Heaven and Earth as witnesses. I know that after I die you’re going to make a mess of things, abandoning the way I commanded, inviting all kinds of evil consequences in the days ahead. You’re determined to do evil in defiance of God—I know you are—deliberately provoking his anger by what you do.”

30 So with everyone in Israel gathered and listening, Moses taught them the words of this song, from start to finish.

The Song

32 1-5 Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you.
    Attention, Earth, I’ve got a mouth full of words.
My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain,
    my words arrive like morning dew,
Like a sprinkling rain on new grass,
    like spring showers on the garden.
For it’s God’s Name I’m preaching—
    respond to the greatness of our God!
The Rock: His works are perfect,
    and the way he works is fair and just;
A God you can depend upon, no exceptions,
    a straight-arrow God.
His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children,
    throw mud at him but none of it sticks.

6-7 Don’t you realize it is God you are treating like this?
    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?
Read up on what happened before you were born;
    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.

8-9 When the High God gave the nations their stake,
    gave them their place on Earth,
He put each of the peoples within boundaries
    under the care of divine guardians.
But God himself took charge of his people,
    took Jacob on as his personal concern.

10-14 He found him out in the wilderness,
    in an empty, windswept wasteland.
He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him,
    guarding him as the apple of his eye.
He was like an eagle hovering over its nest,
    overshadowing its young,
Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air,
    teaching them to fly.
God alone led him;
    there was not a foreign god in sight.
God lifted him onto the hilltops,
    so he could feast on the crops in the fields.
He fed him honey from the rock,
    oil from granite crags,
Curds of cattle and the milk of sheep,
    the choice cuts of lambs and goats,
Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat,
    and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!

15-18 Jeshurun put on weight and bucked;
    you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard.
He abandoned the God who made him,
    he mocked the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with their foreign trendy gods,
    and with obscenities they vexed him no end.
They sacrificed to no-god demons,
    gods they knew nothing about,
The latest in gods, fresh from the market,
    gods your ancestors would never call “gods.”
You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life,
    forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.

19-25 God saw it and spun around,
    angered and hurt by his sons and daughters.
He said, “From now on I’m looking the other way.
    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?
They’ve goaded me with their no-gods,
    infuriated me with their hot-air gods;
I’m going to goad them with a no-people,
    with a hollow nation incense them.
My anger started a fire,
    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.
I’ll pile catastrophes on them,
    I’ll shoot my arrows at them:
Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease;
    I’ll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest
    and venomous creatures to strike from the dust.
Killing in the streets,
    terror in the houses,
Young men and virgins alike struck down,
    and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men.”

26-27 I could have said, “I’ll hack them to pieces,
    wipe out all trace of them from the Earth,”
Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance
    to take credit for all of it,
Crowing, “Look what we did!
    God had nothing to do with this.”

28-33 They are a nation of idiots,
    they don’t know enough to come in out of the rain.
If they had any sense at all, they’d know this;
    they would see what’s coming down the road.
How could one soldier chase a thousand enemies off,
    or two men run off two thousand,
Unless their Rock had sold them,
    unless God had given them away?
For their rock is nothing compared to our Rock;
    even our enemies say that.
They’re a vine that comes right out of Sodom,
    who they are is rooted in Gomorrah;
Their grapes are poison grapes,
    their grape-clusters bitter.
Their wine is rattlesnake venom,
    mixed with lethal cobra poison.

34-35 Don’t you realize that I have my shelves
    well stocked, locked behind iron doors?
I’m in charge of vengeance and payback,
    just waiting for them to slip up;
And the day of their doom is just around the corner,
    sudden and swift and sure.

36-38 Yes, God will judge his people,
    but oh how compassionately he’ll do it.
When he sees their weakened plight
    and there is no one left, slave or free,
He’ll say, “So where are their gods,
    the rock in which they sought refuge,
The gods who feasted on the fat of their sacrifices
    and drank the wine of their drink-offerings?
Let them show their stuff and help you,
    let them give you a hand!

39-42 “Do you see it now? Do you see that I’m the one?
    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!
I raise my hand in solemn oath;
    I say, ‘I’m always around. By that very life I promise:
When I sharpen my lightning sword
    and execute judgment,
I take vengeance on my enemies
    and pay back those who hate me.
I’ll make my arrows drunk with blood,
    my sword will gorge itself on flesh,
Feasting on slain and captive alike,
    the proud and vain enemy corpses.’”

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

44-47 Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. When Moses had finished saying all these words to all Israel, 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. 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.”

48-50 That same day God spoke to Moses: “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. 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.

51-52 “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. 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.”

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