A canticle for the remembrance of the law. Moses is commanded to go up
into a mountain, from whence he shall see the promised land but not
enter into it.
32:1. Hear, O ye heavens, the things I speak, let the earth give ear to
the words of my mouth.
32:2. 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.
32:3. Because I will invoke the name of the Lord: give ye magnificence
to our God.
32:4. The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God
is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right.
32:5. They have sinned against him, and are none of his children in
their filth: they are a wicked and perverse generation.
32:6. 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?
32:7. 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.
32:8. 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.
32:9. But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his
inheritance.
32:10. 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.
32:11. 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.
32:12. The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with
him.
32:13. 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,
32:14. 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.
32:15. 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.
32:16. They provoked him by strange gods, and stirred him up to anger,
with their abominations.
32:17. They sacrificed to devils and not to God: to gods whom they knew
not: that were newly come up, whom their fathers worshipped not.
32:18. Thou hast forsaken the God that begot thee, and hast forgotten
the Lord that created thee.
32:19. The Lord saw, and was moved to wrath: because his own sons and
daughters provoked him.
32:20. 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.
32:21. 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.
32:22. 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.
32:23. I will heap evils upon them, and will spend my arrows among
them.
32:24. 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.
32:25. 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.
32:26. I said: Where are they? I will make the memory of them to cease
from among men.
32:27. 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.
32:28. They are a nation without counsel, and without wisdom.
32:29. O that they would be wise and would understand, and would
provide for their last end.
32:30. 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?
32:31. For our God is not as their gods: our enemies themselves are
judges.
32:32. 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.
32:33. Their wine is the gall of dragons, and the venom of asps, which
is incurable.
32:34. Are not these things stored up with me, and sealed up in my
treasures?
32:35. 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.
32:36. 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.
32:37. And he shall say: Where are their gods, in whom they trusted?
32:38. 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.
32:39. 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.
32:40. I will lift up my hand to heaven, and I will say: I live for
ever.
32:41. 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.
32:42. 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.
32:43. 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.
32:44. So Moses came and spoke all the words of this canticle in the
ears of the people, and Josue the son of Nun.
32:45. And he ended all these words, speaking to all Israel.
32:46. 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:
32:47. 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.
32:48. And the Lord spoke to Moses the same day, saying:
32:49. 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.
32:50. When thou art gone up into it thou shalt be gathered to thy
people, as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor, and was gathered to his
people:
32:51. 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.
32:52. Thou shalt see the land before thee, which I will give to the
children of Israel, but thou shalt not enter into it.