The song of Moses
1Moses said:
‘Heaven, you must listen, because I want to talk.
Earth, you must listen to what I say.
2I pray that the things that I teach people
will be like rain drops.
I pray that the things I say
will be like soft rain on grass,
like rain on green plants.
3I want to shout the name of the Lord,
and I want to say the Lord is great and good.
4He is the Rock, his work is perfect,
and He always does what is right.
He is the faithful God
who never does wrong,
and He is fair and honest.
5But his people have become unfaithful to Him.
They are not his children anymore.
They are impure and false,
and they do only wrong, not right.
6Is this how you thank the Lord?
No, this is wrong.
You are foolish people,
and you have no wisdom.
The Lord is your Father, He made you
and He gave you life.
7Remember how it was long ago.
Think of the years that have passed.
You must ask your parents
to tell you. Ask the old people,
and they will tell you how it was.
8When the Most High God
gave lands to all the people,
He told them to belong to their nations.
Then He said where the borders
of each land must be.
He saw how many Israelites there were
and He decided how many
other nations there must be.
9But the Lord has chosen his own people,
and the descendants of Jacob belong to Him.
10The Lord found his people in a desert,
in a wild place where no one lives.
He protected his people and cared for them.
He guarded them carefully
like a person guards his eye.
11An eagle pushes its young birds
out of the nest and then flies above them,
and it opens its wings and catches them
and carries them on its wings.
12That is how the Lord leads his people.
He does it alone,
and there is no other god with Him.
13He gave this land to his people
to belong to them.
They could eat the wheat
that grows on the lands,
they could take honey out
of the beehives in the rocks,
and they could get olive oil
from the olive trees among the stones.
14They got milk from the cows,
sheep and goats,
they got fat meat from lambs and rams,
and meat from goats and cattle
from the land of Bashan.
They ate the best wheat
and they drank the best red wine.
15The people of Jeshurun
became fat and rebellious.
Yes, they have become thick and too fat.
They have turned away from God,
who made them.
They were foolish and rebellious
against the Rock who saved them.
16They made God angry
when they worshipped the gods of other nations.
They made God angry
when they did things that He hates.
17They sacrificed offerings to demons,
to false gods that can not help them,
gods that their forefathers did not know.
18You have forgotten the Rock.
The Rock is your Father.
You are God's children,
but you have forgotten Him.
19When the Lord saw this,
He was angry about his sons
and daughters. He left them
20and He said:
“I don't want to see them again.
I want to see how they
will come to an end and die.
They are bad and unfaithful people.
21They made Me angry
when they worshipped false gods.
They made Me sad when they made
images that are worthless.
Now I will make them angry.
I will choose a nation who are not my people.
I will make my people sad
and I will choose people who are foolish.
22I am angry, and my anger is very strong.
It is like a burning fire,
burning down to the deepest grave,
a fire that burns the earth
and everything that comes out of the earth.
It burns even under the mountains.
23I will make my people suffer,
and they will always have trouble.
I will shoot them with my arrows.
24They will faint because they are hungry.
I will send deadly diseases to them
and they will not get better.
Wild animals will eat them
and poisonous snakes will bite them.
25There will be war in the streets,
and people will be afraid
and hide in their rooms.
No one will get away,
not the young men or young girls,
no babies or old people.
26I wanted to chase them away
and kill them all,
so that no one would remember them.
27But I realised that the enemies
would not understand what happened
and they would laugh.
They would boast and say:
“‘We have defeated them.
It was not God who did it.”’
28Yes, the enemies do not understand,
and they are not wise.
29If they had wisdom,
then they would have understood
what happened
and they would have known
what would happen later.
30One soldier of the enemies
chased 1 000 men of Israel
and 2 enemy soldiers chased
10 000 men of Israel who fled.
But that happened because
the Rock of Israel had left them,
because the Lord had sold them.
31Yes, the Lord is our Rock,
and the enemies do not have a Rock like this.
32The enemies are like a vine
that grew in Sodom and Gomorrah,
a vine that had poisonous grapes.
33From those grapes came wine
that was as poisonous as snakes,
wine that causes people to die.”
34The Lord says: “I will decide
when I will punish them.
35I will punish the enemies
for what they have done.
Their feet will slip, and they will soon fall.
The things that will happen to them
will happen very soon.”
36Yes, the Lord will judge his people.
He will be good to his servants
when He sees that they are weak
and that only a few of them are still_alive.
37He will ask:
“Where are your gods now,
the gods that had to protect you?
38Where are the gods that ate the fat
of all your offerings
and drank the wine of your drink-offerings?
They must start helping you now
and they must protect you.
39You must know this:
I, and only I, am God.
There is no other god. Only I am God.
I cause people to die and I can let them live.
I make people sick and I heal them.
No one can take my people away from Me.
40I lift my hand towards heaven and I promise,
as sure as I will always live,
41I will sharpen my sword,
and I will hold it in my strong hand.
I will punish my enemies for all they did.
I will punish the people who hate Me.
42When I shoot my arrows
and cut with my sword,
there will be a lot of blood that will flow.
Many people will become prisoners
and they will die.
The leaders of the enemies will also die.”
43The other nations
must rejoice with the people of the Lord
because the Lord will punish everyone
who has killed his servants.
He will punish his enemies
for what they have done,
and He will make atonement
for his land and his people.’
44Moses and Joshua, son of Nun, talked to all the people and they gave them all the words of this song. 45After Moses had finished telling this to the Israelites, 46he said to them: ‘You must remember all the words that I have told you today. Tell your children to do everything that these laws say, 47because it is important to you. It will keep you alive and you will live in the land on the other side of the Jordan River for a long time, in the land that you are going to take for yourselves.’
The Lord tells Moses that he will die
48On that day the Lord said to Moses: 49‘You must go up the Abarim Mountains, to Mount Nebo in Moab, on the other side of Jericho, and you must look at the land of Canaan that I give to the Israelites to belong to them. 50You will die on the mountain as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor. 51It will happen because both of you were unfaithful to Me at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh in the Zin Desert and all the Israelites saw this. I am the holy God but you did not show the Israelites that you honour Me. 52Yes, you may stand there and you may look at the land, but you will not go into the land that I give to the Israelites.’
