321 Listen, Heavens, I have something to tell you. Attention, Earth, I've got a mouth full of words. 2 My teaching, let it fall like a gentle rain, my words arrive like morning dew, Like a sprinkling rain on new grass, like spring showers on the garden. 3 For it's God's Name I'm preaching - respond to the greatness of our God! 4 The Rock: His works are perfect, and the way he works is fair and just; A God you can depend upon, no exceptions, a straight-arrow God. 5 His messed-up, mixed-up children, his non-children, throw mud at him but none of it sticks. 6 Don't you realize it is God you are treating like this? This is crazy; don't you have any sense of reverence? Isn't this your father who created you, who made you and gave you a place on Earth?

7 Read up on what happened before you were born; dig into the past, understand your roots. Ask your parents what it was like before you were born; ask the old-ones, they'll tell you a thing or two. 8 When the High God gave the nations their stake, gave them their place on Earth, He put each of the peoples within boundaries under the care of divine guardians. 9 But God himself took charge of his people, took Jacob on as his personal concern. 10 He found him out in the wilderness, in an empty, windswept wasteland. He threw his arms around him, lavished attention on him, guarding him as the apple of his eye. 11 He was like an eagle hovering over its nest, overshadowing its young, Then spreading its wings, lifting them into the air, teaching them to fly. 12 God alone led him; there was not a foreign god in sight. 13 God lifted him on to the hilltops, so he could feast on the crops in the fields. He fed him honey from the rock, oil from granite crags, 14 Curds of cattle and the milk of sheep, the choice cuts of lambs and goats, Fine Bashan rams, high-quality wheat, and the blood of grapes: you drank good wine!

15 Jeshurun put on weight and bucked; you got fat, became obese, a tub of lard. He abandoned the God who made him, he mocked the Rock of his salvation. 16 They made him jealous with their foreign newfangled gods, and with obscenities they vexed him no end. 17 They sacrificed to no-god demons, gods they knew nothing about, The latest in gods, fresh from the market, gods your ancestors would never call "gods." 18 You walked out on the Rock who gave you your life, forgot the birth-God who brought you into the world.

19 God saw it and turned on his heel, angered and hurt by his sons and daughters. 20 He said, "From now on I'm looking the other way. Wait and see what happens to them. Oh, they're a turned-around, upside-down generation! Who knows what they'll do from one moment to the next? 21 They've goaded me with their no-gods, infuriated me with their hot-air gods; I'm going to goad them with a no-people, with a hollow nation incense them. 22 My anger started a fire, a wildfire burning deep down in Sheol, Then shooting up and devouring the Earth and its crops, setting all the mountains, from bottom to top, on fire. 23 I'll pile catastrophes on them, I'll shoot my arrows at them: 24 Starvation, blistering heat, killing disease; I'll send snarling wild animals to attack from the forest and venomous creatures to strike from the dust. 25 Killing in the streets, terror in the houses, Young men and virgins alike struck down, and yes, breast-feeding babies and gray-haired old men."

26 I could have said, "I'll hack them to pieces, wipe out all trace of them from the Earth," 27 Except that I feared the enemy would grab the chance to take credit for all of it, Crowing, "Look what we did! God had nothing to do with this." 28 They are a nation of ninnies, they don't know enough to come in out of the rain. 29 If they had any sense at all, they'd know this; they would see what's coming down the road. 30 How could one soldier chase a thousand enemies off, or two men run off two thousand, Unless their Rock had sold them, unless God had given them away? 31 For their rock is nothing compared to our Rock; even our enemies say that. 32 They're a vine that comes right out of Sodom, who they are is rooted in Gomorrah; Their grapes are poison grapes, their grape-clusters bitter. 33 Their wine is rattlesnake venom, mixed with lethal cobra poison. 34 Don't you realize that I have my shelves well stocked, locked behind iron doors? 35 I'm in charge of vengeance and payback, just waiting for them to slip up; And the day of their doom is just around the corner, sudden and swift and sure. 36 Yes, God will judge his people, but oh how compassionately he'll do it. When he sees their weakened plight and there is no one left, slave or free, 37 He'll say, "So where are their gods, the rock in which they sought refuge, 38 The gods who feasted on the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink-offerings? Let them show their stuff and help you, let them give you a hand!

39 "Do you see it now? Do you see that I'm the one? Do you see that there's no other god beside me? I bring death and I give life, I wound and I heal - there is no getting away from or around me! 40 I raise my hand in solemn oath; I say, 'I'm always around. By that very life I promise: 41 When I sharpen my lightning sword and execute judgment, I take vengeance on my enemies and pay back those who hate me. 42 I'll make my arrows drunk with blood, my sword will gorge itself on flesh, Feasting on slain and captive alike, the proud and vain enemy corpses.'" 43 Celebrate, nations, join the praise of his people. He avenges the deaths of his servants, Pays back his enemies with vengeance, and cleanses his land for his people.

44 Moses came and recited all the words of this song in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. 45 When Moses had finished saying all these words to all Israel, 46 he said, "Take to heart all these words to which I give witness today and urgently command your children to put them into practice, every single word of this Revelation. 47 Yes. This is no small matter for you; it's your life. In keeping this word you'll have a good and long life in this land that you're crossing the Jordan to possess."

Moses Permitted to See the Land of Canaan

48 That same day God spoke to Moses: 49 "Climb the Abarim Mountains to Mount Nebo in the land of Moab, overlooking Jericho, and view the land of Canaan that I'm giving the People of Israel to have and hold. 50 Die on the mountain that you climb and join your people in the ground, just as your brother Aaron died on Mount Hor and joined his people. 51 "This is because you broke faith with me in the company of the People of Israel at the Waters of Meribah Kadesh in the Wilderness of Zin - you didn't honor my Holy Presence in the company of the People of Israel. 52 You'll look at the land spread out before you but you won't enter it, this land that I am giving to the People of Israel."

Israel Conquers Og of Bashan

31 Then we turned north and took the road to Bashan. Og king of Bashan, he and all his people, came out to meet us in battle at Edrei. 2 God said to me, "Don't be afraid of him; I'm turning him over to you, along with his whole army and his land. Treat him the way you treated Sihon king of the Amorites who ruled from Heshbon." 3 So God, our God, also handed Og king of Bashan over to us - Og and all his people - and we utterly crushed them. Again, no survivors. 4 At the same time we took all his cities. There wasn't one of the sixty cities that we didn't take - the whole region of Argob, Og's kingdom in Bashan. 5 All these cities were fortress cities with high walls and barred gates. There were also numerous unwalled villages. 6 We totally destroyed them - a holy destruction. It was the same treatment we gave to Sihon king of Heshbon, a holy destruction of every city, man, woman, and child. 7 But all the livestock and plunder from the cities we took for ourselves. 8 Throughout that time we took the land from under the control of the two kings of the Amorites who ruled the country east of the Jordan, all the way from the Brook Arnon to Mount Hermon. 9 (Sirion is the name given Hermon by the Sidonians; the Amorites call it Senir.) 10 We took all the towns of the plateau, everything in Gilead, everything in Bashan, as far as Salecah and Edrei, the border towns of Bashan, Og's kingdom. 11 Og king of Bashan was the last remaining Rephaite. His bed, made of iron, was over thirteen feet long and six wide. You can still see it on display in Rabbah of the People of Ammon.

Reuben, Gad, and Half of Manasseh Settle East of the Jordan

12 Of the land that we possessed at that time, I gave the Reubenites and the Gadites the territory north of Aroer along the Brook Arnon and half the hill country of Gilead with its towns. 13 I gave the half-tribe of Manasseh the rest of Gilead and all of Bashan, Og's kingdom - all the region of Argob, which takes in all of Bashan. This used to be known as the Land of the Rephaites. 14 Jair, a son of Manasseh, got the region of Argob to the borders of the Geshurites and Maacathites. He named the Bashan villages after himself, Havvoth Jair (Jair's Tent-Villages). They're still called that. 15 I gave Gilead to Makir. 16 I gave the Reubenites and Gadites the land from Gilead down to the Brook Arnon, whose middle was the boundary, and as far as the Jabbok River, the boundary line of the People of Ammon. 17 The western boundary was the Jordan River in the Arabah all the way from the Kinnereth (the Sea of Galilee) to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea or Dead Sea) at the base of the slopes of Mount Pisgah on the east. 18 I commanded you at that time, "God, your God, has given you this land to possess. Your men, fit and armed for the fight, are to cross the river in advance of their brothers, the People of Israel. 19 Only your wives, children, and livestock (I know you have much livestock) may go ahead and settle down in the towns I have already given you 20 until God secures living space for your brothers as he has for you and they have taken possession of the country west of the Jordan that God, your God, is giving them. After that, each man may return to the land I've given you here."

21 I commanded Joshua at that time, "You've seen with your own two eyes everything God, your God, has done to these two kings. God is going to do the same thing to all the kingdoms over there across the river where you're headed. 22 Don't be afraid of them. God, your God, - he's fighting for you."

Moses Not Permitted to Enter Canaan

23 At that same time, I begged God: 24 "God, my Master, you let me in on the beginnings, you let me see your greatness, you let me see your might - what god in Heaven or Earth can do anything like what you've done! 25 Please, let me in also on the endings, let me cross the river and see the good land over the Jordan, the lush hills, the Lebanon mountains." 26 But God was still angry with me because of you. He wouldn't listen. He said, "Enough of that. Not another word from you on this. 27 Climb to the top of Mount Pisgah and look around: look west, north, south, east. Take in the land with your own eyes. Take a good look because you're not going to cross this Jordan. 28 "Then command Joshua: Give him courage. Give him strength. Single-handed he will lead this people across the river. Single-handed he'll cause them to inherit the land at which you can only look." 29 That's why we have stayed in this valley near Beth Peor.