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28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them, blessing each one of them with a suitable blessing.

32Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;
   let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
² May my teaching drop like the rain,
   my speech condense like the dew;
like gentle rain on grass,
   like showers on new growth.
³ For I will proclaim the name of the Lord;
   ascribe greatness to our God!

⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect,
   and all his ways are just.
A faithful God, without deceit,
   just and upright is he;
⁵ yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,^*
   a perverse and crooked generation.
⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord,
   O foolish and senseless people?
Is not he your father, who created you,
   who made you and established you?
⁷ Remember the days of old,
   consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you;
   your elders, and they will tell you.
⁸ When the Most High^* apportioned the nations,
   when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
   according to the number of the gods;^*
9 the Lord’s own portion was his people,
   Jacob his allotted share.

¹⁰ He sustained^* him in a desert land,
   in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
   guarded him as the apple of his eye.
¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,
   and hovers over its young;
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
   and bears them aloft on its pinions,
¹² the Lord alone guided him;
   no foreign god was with him.
¹³ He set him upon the heights of the land,
   and fed him with^* produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
   with oil from flinty rock;
¹⁴ curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
   with fat of lambs and rams;
Bashan bulls and goats,
   together with the choicest wheat—
   you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.
¹⁵ Jacob ate his fill;^*
   Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
   You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him,
   and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
¹⁶ They made him jealous with strange gods,
   with abhorrent things they provoked him.
¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not God,
   to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
   whom your ancestors had not feared.
¹⁸ You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;^*
   you forgot the God who gave you birth.

¹⁹ The Lord saw it, and was jealous;^*
   he spurned^* his sons and daughters.
²⁰ He said: I will hide my face from them,
   I will see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
   children in whom there is no faithfulness.
²¹ They made me jealous with what is no god,
   provoked me with their idols.
So I will make them jealous with what is no people,
   provoke them with a foolish nation.
²² For a fire is kindled by my anger,
   and burns to the depths of Sheol;
it devours the earth and its increase,
   and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.
²³ I will heap disasters upon them,
   spend my arrows against them:
²⁴ wasting hunger,
   burning consumption,
   bitter pestilence.
The teeth of beasts I will send against them,
   with venom of things crawling in the dust.
²⁵ In the street the sword shall bereave,
   and in the chambers terror,
for young man and woman alike,
   nursing child and old grey head.
²⁶ I thought to scatter them^*
   and blot out the memory of them from humankind;
²⁷ but I feared provocation by the enemy,
   for their adversaries might misunderstand
and say, ‘Our hand is triumphant;
   it was not the Lord who did all this.’

²⁸ They are a nation void of sense;
   there is no understanding in them.
²⁹ If they were wise, they would understand this;
   they would discern what the end would be.
³⁰ How could one have routed a thousand,
   and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
   the Lord had given them up?
³¹ Indeed their rock is not like our Rock;
   our enemies are fools.^*
32 Their vine comes from the vine-stock of Sodom,
   from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
   their clusters are bitter;
³³ their wine is the poison of serpents,
   the cruel venom of asps.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with me,
   sealed up in my treasuries?
³⁵ Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
   for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
   their doom comes swiftly.

³⁶ Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,
   have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
   neither bond nor free remaining.
³⁷ Then he will say: Where are their gods,
   the rock in which they took refuge,
³⁸ who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
   and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you,
   let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, even I, am he;
   there is no god besides me.
I kill and I make alive;
   I wound and I heal;
   and no one can deliver from my hand.
⁴⁰ For I lift up my hand to heaven,
   and swear: As I live for ever,
⁴¹ when I whet my flashing sword,
   and my hand takes hold on judgement;
I will take vengeance on my adversaries,
   and will repay those who hate me.
⁴² I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
   and my sword shall devour flesh—
with the blood of the slain and the captives,
   from the long-haired enemy.

⁴³ Praise, O heavens,^* his people,
   worship him, all you gods!^*
For he will avenge the blood of his children,^*
   and take vengeance on his adversaries;
he will repay those who hate him,^*
   and cleanse the land for his people.^*

44 Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua^* son of Nun. ⁴⁵When Moses had finished reciting all these words to all Israel, ⁴⁶he said to them: ‘Take to heart all the words that I am giving in witness against you today; give them as a command to your children, so that they may diligently observe all the words of this law. ⁴⁷This is no trifling matter for you, but rather your very life; through it you may live long in the land that you are crossing over the Jordan to possess.’

Moses’ Death Foretold

48 On that very day the Lord addressed Moses as follows: ⁴⁹‘Ascend this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, across from Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites for a possession; ⁵⁰you shall die there on the mountain that you ascend and shall be gathered to your kin, as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his kin; ⁵¹because both of you broke faith with me among the Israelites at the waters of Meribath-kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, by failing to maintain my holiness among the Israelites. ⁵²Although you may view the land from a distance, you shall not enter it—the land that I am giving to the Israelites.’

Moses’ Final Blessing on Israel

33This is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before his death. ²He said:
The Lord came from Sinai,
   and dawned from Seir upon us;^*
   he shone forth from Mount Paran.
With him were myriads of holy ones;^*
   at his right, a host of his own.^*
3 Indeed, O favourite among^* peoples,
   all his holy ones were in your charge;
they marched at your heels,
   accepted direction from you.
⁴ Moses charged us with the law,
   as a possession for the assembly of Jacob.
⁵ There arose a king in Jeshurun,
   when the leaders of the people assembled—
   the united tribes of Israel.

⁶ May Reuben live, and not die out,
   even though his numbers are few.

⁷And this he said of Judah:
O Lord, give heed to Judah,
   and bring him to his people;
strengthen his hands for him,^*
   and be a help against his adversaries.

⁸And of Levi he said:
Give to Levi^* your Thummim,
   and your Urim to your loyal one,
whom you tested at Massah,
   with whom you contended at the waters of Meribah;
⁹ who said of his father and mother,
   ‘I regard them not’;
he ignored his kin,
   and did not acknowledge his children.
For they observed your word,
   and kept your covenant.
¹⁰ They teach Jacob your ordinances,
   and Israel your law;
they place incense before you,
   and whole burnt-offerings on your altar.
¹¹ Bless, O Lord, his substance,
   and accept the work of his hands;
crush the loins of his adversaries,
   of those that hate him, so that they do not rise again.

¹²Of Benjamin he said:
The beloved of the Lord rests in safety—
the High God^* surrounds him all day long—
   the beloved^* rests between his shoulders.

¹³And of Joseph he said:
Blessed by the Lord be his land,
   with the choice gifts of heaven above,
   and of the deep that lies beneath;
¹⁴ with the choice fruits of the sun,
   and the rich yield of the months;
¹⁵ with the finest produce of the ancient mountains,
   and the abundance of the everlasting hills;
¹⁶ with the choice gifts of the earth and its fullness,
   and the favour of the one who dwells on Sinai.^*
Let these come on the head of Joseph,
   on the brow of the prince among his brothers.
¹⁷ A firstborn^* bull—majesty is his!
   His horns are the horns of a wild ox;
with them he gores the peoples,
   driving them to^* the ends of the earth;
such are the myriads of Ephraim,
   such the thousands of Manasseh.

¹⁸And of Zebulun he said:
Rejoice, Zebulun, in your going out;
   and Issachar, in your tents.
¹⁹ They call peoples to the mountain;
   there they offer the right sacrifices;
for they suck the affluence of the seas
   and the hidden treasures of the sand.

²⁰And of Gad he said:
Blessed be the enlargement of Gad!
   Gad lives like a lion;
   he tears at arm and scalp.
²¹ He chose the best for himself,
   for there a commander’s allotment was reserved;
he came at the head of the people,
   he executed the justice of the Lord,
   and his ordinances for Israel.

²²And of Dan he said:
Dan is a lion’s whelp
   that leaps forth from Bashan.

²³And of Naphtali he said:
O Naphtali, sated with favour,
   full of the blessing of the Lord,
   possess the west and the south.

²⁴And of Asher he said:
Most blessed of sons be Asher;
   may he be the favourite of his brothers,
   and may he dip his foot in oil.
²⁵ Your bars are iron and bronze;
   and as your days, so is your strength.

²⁶ There is none like God, O Jeshurun,
   who rides through the heavens to your help,
   majestic through the skies.
²⁷ He subdues the ancient gods,^*
   shatters^* the forces of old;^*
he drove out the enemy before you,
   and said, ‘Destroy!’
²⁸ So Israel lives in safety,
   untroubled is Jacob’s abode^*
in a land of grain and wine,
   where the heavens drop down dew.
²⁹ Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you,
   a people saved by the Lord,
the shield of your help,
   and the sword of your triumph!
Your enemies shall come fawning to you,
   and you shall tread on their backs.