32:1 Listen, O heavens, and I will speak;
hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
32:2 My teaching will drop like the rain,
my sayings will drip like the dew, 1
as rain drops upon the grass,
and showers upon new growth.
32:3 For I will proclaim the name 2 of the Lord;
you must acknowledge the greatness of our God.
32:4 As for the Rock, 3 his work is perfect,
for all his ways are just.
He is a reliable God who is never unjust,
he is fair 4 and upright.
32:5 His people have been unfaithful 5 to him;
they have not acted like his children 6 – this is their sin. 7
They are a perverse 8 and deceitful generation.
32:6 Is this how you repay 9 the Lord,
you foolish, unwise people?
Is he not your father, your creator?
He has made you and established you.
32:7 Remember the ancient days;
bear in mind 10 the years of past generations. 11
Ask your father and he will inform you,
your elders, and they will tell you.
32:8 When the Most High 12 gave the nations their inheritance,
when he divided up humankind, 13
he set the boundaries of the peoples,
according to the number of the heavenly assembly. 14
32:9 For the Lord’s allotment is his people,
Jacob is his special possession. 15
32:10 The Lord 16 found him 17 in a desolate land,
in an empty wasteland where animals howl. 18
He continually guarded him 19 and taught him; 20
he continually protected him 21 like the pupil 22 of his eye.
32:11 Like an eagle that stirs up 23 its nest,
that hovers over its young,
so the Lord 24 spread out his wings and took him, 25
he lifted him up on his pinions.
32:12 The Lord alone was guiding him, 26
no foreign god was with him.
32:13 He enabled him 27 to travel over the high terrain of the land,
and he ate of the produce of the fields.
He provided honey for him from the cliffs, 28
and olive oil 29 from the hardest of 30 rocks, 31
32:14 butter from the herd
and milk from the flock,
along with the fat of lambs,
rams and goats of Bashan,
along with the best of the kernels of wheat;
and from the juice of grapes you drank wine.
32:15 But Jeshurun 32 became fat and kicked,
you 33 got fat, thick, and stuffed!
Then he deserted the God who made him,
and treated the Rock who saved him with contempt.
32:16 They made him jealous with other gods, 34
they enraged him with abhorrent idols. 35
32:17 They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to gods they had not known;
to new gods who had recently come along,
gods your ancestors 36 had not known about.
32:18 You have forgotten 37 the Rock who fathered you,
and put out of mind the God who gave you birth.
32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them
because his sons and daughters enraged him.
32:20 He said, “I will reject them, 38
I will see what will happen to them;
for they are a perverse generation,
children 39 who show no loyalty.
32:21 They have made me jealous 40 with false gods, 41
enraging me with their worthless gods; 42
so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, 43
with a nation slow to learn 44 I will enrage them.
32:22 For a fire has been kindled by my anger,
and it burns to lowest Sheol; 45
it consumes the earth and its produce,
and ignites the foundations of the mountains.
32:23 I will increase their 46 disasters,
I will use up my arrows on them.
32:24 They will be starved by famine,
eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; 47
I will send the teeth of wild animals against them,
along with the poison of creatures that crawl in the dust.
32:25 The sword will make people childless outside,
and terror will do so inside;
they will destroy 48 both the young man and the virgin,
the infant and the gray-haired man.