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Deuteronomy
32
Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth
give ear to the words of my mouth.
Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil
as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops
upon the grass.
Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye
magnificence to our God.
The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments:
God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just
and right.
They have sinned against him, and are nose of his children
in their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation.
Is this the return thou makest to the Lord, O foolish
and senseless people? Is not he thy father, that hath
possessed thee, and made thee, and created thee?
Remember the days of old, think upon every generation:
ask thy father, and he will declare to thee: thy elders
and they will tell thee.
When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated
the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people
according to the number of the children of Israel.
But the Lord's portion is his people: Jacob the lot
of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror,
and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught
him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye.
As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering
over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and
carried him on his shoulders.
The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange
god with him.
He set him upon high land: that he might eat the fruits
of the fields, that he might suck honey out of the rock,
and oil out of the hardest stone,
Butter of the herd, and milk of the sheep with the fat
of lambs, and of the rams of the breed of Basan: and
goats with the marrow of wheat, and might drink the
purest blood of the grape.
The beloved grew fat, and kicked: he grew fat, and thick
and gross, he forsook God who made him, and departed
from God his saviour.
They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up
to anger, with their abominations.
They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom
they knew not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers
worshipped not.
Thou hast forsaken the God that beget thee, and hast
forgotten the Lord that created thee.
The Lord saw, and was moved to wrath: because his own
sons and daughters provoked him.
And he said: I will hide my face from them, and will
consider what their last end shall be: for it is a perverse
generation, and unfaithful children.
They have provoked me with that which was no god, and
have angered me with their vanities: and I will provoke
them with that which is no people, and will vex them
with a foolish nation.
A fire is kindled in my wrath, and shall burn even to
the lowest hell: and shall devour the earth with her
increase, and shall burn the foundations of the mountains.
I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows
among them.
They shall be consumed with famine, and birds shall
devour them with a most bitter bite: I will send the
teeth of beasts upon them, with the fury of creatures
that trail upon the ground, and of serpents.
Without, the sword shall lay them waste, and terror
within, both the young man and the virgin, the sucking
child with the man in years.
I said: Where are they? I will make the memory of them
to cease from among men.
But for the wrath of the enemies I have deferred it:
lest perhaps their enemies might be proud, and should
say: Our mighty hand, and not the Lord, hath done all
these things.
They are a nation without counsel, and without wisdom.
O that they would be wise and would understand, and
would provide for their last end.
How should one pursue after a thousand, and two chase
ten thousand? Was it not, because their God had sold
them, and the Lord had shut them up?
For our God is not as their gods: our enemies themselves
are judges.
Their vines are of the vineyard of Sodom, and of the
suburbs of Gomorrha: their grapes are grapes of gall,
and their clusters most bitter.
Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of
asps, which is incurable.
Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed up
in my treasures?
Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time,
that their foot may slide: the day of destruction is
at hand, and the time makes haste to come.
The Lord will judge his people, and will have mercy
on his servants : he shall see that their hand is weakened,
and that they who were shut up have also failed, and
they that remained are consumed.
And he shall say: Where are their gods, in whom they
trusted?
Of whose victims they ate the fat, and drank the wine
of their drink offerings: let them arise and help you,
and protect you in your distress.
See ye that I alone am, and there is no other God besides
me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike,
and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver
out of my hand.
I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I
live for ever.
If I shall whet my sword as the lightning, and my hand
take hold on judgment: I will render vengeance to my
enemies, and repay them that hate me.
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword
shall devour flesh, of the blood of the slain and of
the captivity, of the bare head of the enemies.
Praise his people, ye nations, for he will revenge the
blood of his servants: and will render vengeance to
their enemies, and he will be merciful to the land of
his people.
So Moses came and spoke all the words of this canticle
in the ears of the people, and Josue the son of Nun.
And he ended all these words, speaking to all Israel.
And he said to them : Set your hearts on all the words,
which I testify to you this day: which you shall command
your children to observe and to do, and to fulfil all
that is written in this law:
For they are not commanded you in vain, but that every
one should live in them, and that doing them you may
continue a long time in the land whither you are going
over the Jordan to possess it.
And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying:
Go up into this mountain Abarim, (that is to say, of
passages,) unto mount Nebo, which is in the land of
Moab over against Jericho: and see the land of Chanaan,
which I will deliver to the children of Israel to possess,
and die thou in the mountain.
When thou art gone up into it thou shalt be gathered
to thy people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Her,
and was gathered to his people:
Because you trespassed against me in the midst of the
children of Israel, at the waters of contradiction in
Cades of the desert of Sin: and you did not sanctify
me among the children of Israel.
Thou shalt see the land before thee, which I will give
to the children of Israel, but thou shalt not enter
into it. |