1
Give ear, O you heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.
2
My teaching shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
3
Because I will proclaim the name of the LORD: ascribe you greatness unto our God.
4
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are justice: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
5
They have corrupted themselves, their blemish is not the blemish of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation.
6
Do you thus repay the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he your father that has bought you? has he not made you, and established you?
7
Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask your father, and he will show you; your elders, and they will tell you.
8
When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
9
For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
10
He found him in a desert land, and in the wasteland of the howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
11
As an eagle stirs up its nest, flutters over its young, spreads abroad its wings, takes them, bears them on its wings:
12
So the LORD alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
13
He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;
14
Curds of the cattle, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you did drink the pure blood of the grape.
15
But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked: you are grown fat, you are grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16
They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked him to anger.
17
They sacrificed unto demons, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came in of late, whom your fathers feared not.
18
Of the Rock that begat you you are unmindful, and have forgotten God that formed you.
19
And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no faith.
21
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
22
For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with its increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.
23
I will heap evils upon them; I will spend my arrows upon them.
24
They shall be wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of animals upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.
25
The sword outside, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the nursing child also with the man of gray hairs.
26
I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:
27
Were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should misunderstand, and lest they should say, Our hand has triumphed, and the LORD has not done all this.
28
For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them.
29
O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!
30
How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had given them up?
31
For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
32
For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter:
33
Their wine is the poison of serpents, and the cruel venom of asps.
34
Is not this laid up in store with me, and sealed up among my treasures?
35
To me belongs vengeance, and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste.
36
For the LORD shall judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone, and there is none left, slave or free.
37
And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted,
38
Who did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection.
39
See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god besides me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
40
For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, As I live forever.
41
If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand takes hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my enemies, and will reward them that hate me.
42
I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh; and that with the blood of the slain and of the captives, from the heads of the leaders of the enemy.
43
Rejoice, O you nations, with his people: for he will avenge the blood of his servants, and will render vengeance to his adversaries, and will be merciful unto his land, and to his people.
