Deuteronomy 32:16-42
16
They made him jealous with their foreign gods
and angered him with their detestable idols.
17
They sacrificed to demons, which are not God—
gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared,
gods your fathers did not fear.
18
You deserted the Rock, who fathered you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
19
The Lord saw this and rejected them
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
20
“I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
21
They made me jealous by what is no god
and angered me with their worthless idols.
I will make them envious by those who are not a people;
I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding.
22
For a fire has been kindled by my wrath,
one that burns to the realm of death below.
It will devour the earth and its harvests
and set afire the foundations of the mountains.
23
“I will heap calamities upon them
and spend my arrows against them.
24
I will send wasting famine against them,
consuming pestilence and deadly plague;
I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts,
the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.
25
In the street the sword will make them childless;
in their homes terror will reign.
Young men and young women will perish,
infants and gray-haired men.
26
I said I would scatter them
and blot out their memory from mankind,
27
but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy,
lest the adversary misunderstand
and say, ‘Our hand has triumphed;
the Lord has not done all this.’”
28
They are a nation without sense,
there is no discernment in them.
29
If only they were wise and would understand this
and discern what their end will be!
30
How could one man chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
31
For their rock is not like our Rock,
as even our enemies concede.
32
Their vine comes from the vine of Sodom
and from the fields of Gomorrah.
Their grapes are filled with poison,
and their clusters with bitterness.
33
Their wine is the venom of serpents,
the deadly poison of cobras.
34
“Have I not kept this in reserve
and sealed it in my vaults?
35
It is mine to avenge; I will repay.
In due time their foot will slip;
their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them.”
36
The Lord will judge his people
and have compassion on his servants
when he sees their strength is gone
and no one is left, slave or free.
37
He will say: “Now where are their gods,
the rock they took refuge in,
38
the gods who ate the fat of their sacrifices
and drank the wine of their drink offerings?
Let them rise up to help you!
Let them give you shelter!
39
“See now that I myself am He!
There is no god besides me.
I put to death and I bring to life,
I have wounded and I will heal,
and no one can deliver out of my hand.
40
I lift my hand to heaven and declare:
As surely as I live forever,
41
when I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my adversaries
and repay those who hate me.
42
I will make my arrows drunk with blood,
while my sword devours flesh:
the blood of the slain and the captives,
the heads of the enemy leaders.”