Devarim (Deuteronomy): Haazinu > Ch 32

Moses tells Israelites the song about their relationship with G-d, both in the past and in the future

  • Listen, O heavens, and I will speak! And let the earth hear the words of my mouth!

    My lesson will drip like rain; my word will flow like dew; like storm winds on vegetation and like raindrops on grass.

    When I call out the name of the Lord, ascribe greatness to our G-d.

    The deeds of the [Mighty] Rock are perfect, for all His ways are just; a faithful G-d, without injustice He is righteous and upright.

    Destruction is not His; it is His children's defect you crooked and twisted generation.

    Is this how you repay the Lord, you disgraceful, unwise people?! Is He not your Father, your Master? He has made you and established you.

    Remember the days of old; reflect upon the years of [other] generations. Ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will inform you.

    When the Most High gave nations their lot, when He separated the sons of man, He set up the boundaries of peoples according to the number of the children of Israel.

    Because the Lord's portion is His people Jacob, the lot of His inheritance.

    He found them in a desert land, and in a desolate, howling wasteland. He encompassed them and bestowed understanding upon them; He protected them as the pupil of His eye.

    As an eagle awakens its nest, hovering over its fledglings, it spreads its wings, taking them and carrying them on its pinions.

    [So] the Lord guided them alone, and there was no alien deity with Him.

    He made them ride upon the high places of the earth, that they would eat the produce of the field. He let them suck honey from a rock, and oil from the mighty part of the crag.

    The cream of cattle and the milk of sheep, with the fat of lambs and rams of Bashan and he goats, with kidneys of wheat, and it [the congregation of Israel] would drink the blood of grapes [which was] as the finest wine.

    And Jeshurun became fat and rebelled; you grew fat, thick and rotund; [Israel] forsook the G-d Who made them, and spurned the [Mighty] Rock of their salvation.

    They provoked His zeal with alien worship; they made Him angry with abominations deeds.

    They sacrificed to demons, which have no power, deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear.

    You forgot the [Mighty] Rock Who bore you; you forgot the G-d Who delivered you.

    And the Lord saw this and became angry, provoked by His sons and daughters.

    And He said, "I will hide My face from them. I will see what their end will be, for they are a generation of changes; they are not [recognizable] as My children whom I have reared.

    They have provoked My jealousy with a non god, provoked My anger with their vanities. Thus, I will provoke their jealousy with a non people, provoke their anger with a foolish nation.

    For a fire blazed in My wrath, and burned to the lowest depths. It consumed the land and its produce, setting aflame the foundations of mountains.

    I will link evils upon them. I will use up My arrows on them.

    They will sprout hair from famine, attacked by demons, excised by Meriri. I will incite the teeth of livestock upon them, with the venom of creatures that slither in the dust.

    From outside, the sword will bereave, and terror from within; young men and maidens, suckling babes with venerable elders.

    I said that I would make an end of them, eradicate their remembrance from mankind.

    Were it not that the enemy's wrath was heaped up, lest their adversaries distort; lest they claim, "Our hand was triumphant! The Lord did none of this!"

    For they are a nation devoid of counsel, and they have no understanding.

    If they were wise, they would understand this; they would reflect upon their fate.

    How can one [person] pursue a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their [Mighty] Rock has sold them out, and the Lord has given them over?

    For their rock is not like our [Mighty] Rock. Nevertheless, our enemies sit in judgment.

    For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the field of Gemorrah; their grapes are grapes of rosh, and they have bitter clusters.

    Their wine is the bitterness of serpents, and the bitterness of the ruthless cobras.

    Is it not stored up with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?

    Vengeance is poised with Me, and it will pay at the time their foot stumbles. For the appointed day of their reckoning is near, and what is destined for them hastens.

    When the Lord will judge His people, and will reconsider His servants, when He sees that the power is increasing, and none is controlled or strengthened.

    Then He will say, "Where is their deity, the rock in which they trusted,

    who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their libations? Let them arise and help you! Let them be your shelter!

    See now that it is I! I am the One, and there is no god like Me! I cause death and grant life. I strike, but I heal, and no one can rescue from My Hand!

    For I raise up My hand to heaven, and say, 'As I live forever.'

    When I sharpen the blade of My sword, and My hand grasps judgment, I will bring vengeance upon My adversaries and repay those who hate Me.

    I will intoxicate My arrows with blood, and My sword will consume flesh, from the blood of the slain and the captives, from the first breach of the enemy.'

    Sing out praise, O you nations, for His people! For He will avenge the blood of His servants, inflict revenge upon His adversaries, and appease His land [and] His people.


Torah is your life

  • And Moses came and spoke all the words of this song into the ears of the people he and Hoshea the son of Nun. And Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel. And he said to them, "Set your hearts to all of the words which I bear witness for you this day, so that you may command your children to observe to do all the words of this Torah. For it is not an empty thing for you, for it is your life, and through this thing, you will lengthen your days upon the land to which you are crossing over the Jordan, to possess it."


G-d tells Moses to go to Mount Nebo and die there, looking at the Land of Canaan. G-d doesn’t let Moses enter the land because Moses failed Him at the waters of Merivath Kadesh.

  • And the Lord spoke to Moses on that very day, saying, Go up this Mount Avarim [to] Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, that is facing Jericho, and see the Land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel as a possession, And die on the mountain upon which you are climbing and be gathered to your people, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people. Because you betrayed Me in the midst of the children of Israel at the waters of Merivath Kadesh, [in] the desert of Zin, [and] because you did not sanctify Me in the midst of the children of Israel. For from afar, you will see the land, but you will not come there, to the land I am giving the children of Israel.