1“Listen to me, all you who are in the heavens,
2I wish/desire that my teaching will fall on you like rain drops
3I will praise Yahweh [MTY].
4He is like a rock [MET] under which we are protected;
5“But you Israeli people have been very unfaithful to him;
6You foolish and senseless [DOU] people,
7“Think about what happened long ago;
8When God, who is greater than any other god, long ago divided the people into groups,
9But Yahweh decided that we would be his people;
10“e saw our ancestors when they were in a desert,
11Yahweh protected his people just like an eagle encourages its babies to fly
12Yahweh was the only one who led them;
13“After they entered the land that Yahweh promised to give to them,
14The cows gave them plenty of curds/yogurt, the goats gave them plenty of milk,
15“he Israeli people became rich and prosperous,
16So he abandoned them because they started to worship other/strange gods.
17They offered sacrifices to gods who were really demons,
18They forgot the true God, the one who protects them [MET],
19“hen Yahweh saw that they had abandoned him, he became angry,
20He said, ‘They are very wicked/stubborn people,
21They 32:21 Because they heymade me very angry because of their worshiping idols, which are not really gods;
22I will be very angry, and I will destroy them
23I will cause them to experience many disasters;
24They will die because of being hungry and because of having hot fevers
25Outside their houses, their enemies will kill them [MTY] with swords,
26I wanted to scatter the Israeli people to distant countries
27But if I did that, their enemies would wrongly boast
28You Israelis are a nation of people who do not have any sense.
29If you were wise, you would understand why you would be punished;
30You would have realized why 1,000 of your soldiers would be defeated by only one of the enemy soldiers,
31Your enemies know that their gods are not powerful like Yahweh, our God,
32Your enemies are like [MET] grapevines planted near the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah cities;
33the wine from those grapes is like the poison of snakes [DOU].
34“Yahweh says, ‘I know [RHQ] what I have planned to do to the Israeli people and to their enemies,
35I am the one who will get revenge and pay those enemies back for what they have done to my people,
36“But Yahweh will see that you who are truly his people, who ◄are innocent/have not done things that are wrong►,
37Then Yahweh will ask his people, ‘Where are the gods
38You gave to those gods the best parts of the animals that you sacrificed,
39“But now you will realize that I, only I, am God;
40I raise my hand toward heaven and solemnly declare
41that when I sharpen my sword,
42I will kill all of my enemies with a sword;
43“You people of all nations, you as well as his people should praise Yahweh,
44Joshua and Moses/I recited the words of that song while the Israeli people were listening.
45When they/we finished reciting to the Israeli people the words of this song,
46Moses/I said, “Never forget all these commands that I have been giving you today. Teach these laws to your children, in order that they will faithfully obey all of them.
47These instructions are very important [LIT]. If you obey them, you will live a long time in the land that you are about to cross the Jordan River to occupy.”
48On that same day, Yahweh said to Moses/me,
49“Go to the Abarim Mountain range here in the Moab region, across from Jericho. Climb Nebo Mountain, and look toward the west to see Canaan land, the land that I am about to give to the Israeli people.
50You will die on that mountain [EUP, DOU], like your older brother Aaron died on Hor Mountain.
51You will die because both of you disobeyed me in the presence of the Israeli people, when you all were at Meribah Springs near Kadesh town in the Zin Desert. You did not honor and respect me in the presence of the Israeli people in the way that I deserve because I am God.
52When you are on that mountain where I told you to go, you will see in the distance in front of you the land that I am about to give to the Israeli people, but you will not enter it.”