World English Bible · Egypt and Sinai
Deuteronomy 32
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Give ear, you , and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my . My doctrine will drop as the . My speech will condense as the , as the misty on the tender grass, as the on the herb. For I will proclaim name. Ascribe greatness to our ! : his work is perfect, for all his ways are . A of who does no wrong, and right is he. They have dealt corruptly with him. They are not his children, because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation. Is this you , foolish and unwise people? Isn't he your who has bought you? He has made you and established you. Remember the days of old. Consider the years of many generations. Ask your , and he will show you; your , and they will tell you. When gave to the nations their , when he separated the children of men, he set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the . For is his people. is the lot of his . He found him in a land, in the waste howling . He surrounded him. He cared for him. He kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, he spread abroad his , he took them, he bore them on his feathers. alone led him. There was no foreign with him. He made him ride on the of the earth. He ate the increase of the field. He caused him to suck honey out of , oil out of the flinty ; butter from the herd, and milk from the flock, with fat of lambs, rams of the breed of , and goats, with the finest of the wheat. From of the grape, you drank . But Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked. You have grown fat. You have grown thick. You have become sleek. Then he abandoned who made him, and rejected of his . They moved him to with strange gods. They provoked him to with . They to , not , to gods that they didn't know, to new gods that came up recently, which your fathers didn't dread. Of who became your , you are unmindful, and have forgotten who gave you birth. saw and abhorred, because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. He said, "I will hide from them. I will see what their end will be; for they are a very perverse generation, children in whom is no . They have moved me to with that which is not . They have provoked me to with their . I will move them to with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to with a foolish nation. For a is kindled in my , that burns to the lowest , devours the earth with its increase, and sets the foundations of the mountains on . "I will heap evils on them. I will spend my arrows on them. They shall be wasted with , and devoured with burning heat and bitter . I will send the teeth of animals on them, with the venom of vipers that glide in . Outside will bereave, and in the rooms, terror on both young man and virgin, the nursing infant with the gray-haired man. I said that I would scatter them afar. I would make their memory to cease from among men; were it not that I feared the provocation of , lest their should judge wrongly, lest they should say, 'Our hand is exalted; has not done all this.'" For they are a nation void of . There is no in them. Oh that they were , that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! How could one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, unless their had sold them, and had them up? For their is not as our , even our themselves concede. For their is of of , of the fields of . Their grapes are poison grapes. Their clusters are bitter. Their is the poison of , the cruel venom of asps. "Isn't this laid up in store with me, sealed up among my ? is mine, and , at the time when their foot slides, for the day of their calamity is at hand. Their doom rushes at them." For will judge his people, and have on his servants, when he sees that their is gone, that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large. He will say, "Where are their gods, in which they took refuge, which ate their , and drank the of their drink ? Let them rise up and help you! Let them be your protection. "See now that I myself am he. There is no with me. I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. There is no one who can out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to and declare, as I live , if I sharpen my glittering , my hand grasps it in ; I will take on my , and will those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with . My shall devour with of the slain and the , from the head of the leaders of ." Rejoice, you nations, with his people, for he will of his servants. He will take on his , and will make atonement for his land and for his people. came and spoke all the words of this song in the ears of the people, he and the son of . 45 finished reciting all these words to all Israel. He said to them, "Set to all the words which I testify to you today, which you shall command your children to observe to do, all the words of this law. For it is no thing for you, because it is your life, and through this thing you shall prolong your days in the land, where you go over to possess it." spoke to that same day, saying, "Go up into this mountain of , to , which is in the land of , that is across from ; and see the land of , which I give to the for a possession. on the mountain where you go up, and be gathered to your people, as your brother on , and was gathered to his people; because you trespassed against me among the at the waters of of , in of ; because you didn't uphold my among the . For you shall see the land from a distance; but you shall not go there into the land which I give the ."
A public domain modern English translation, free to read and share. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · Egypt and Sinai, 1450 BC to 1200 BC ›
Israel in and then out of Egypt, at a period when Egypt was an imperial power that also controlled Canaan. The nation is formed as a people with a law before it has any land.
- Egypt
- The New Kingdom at its imperial peak, with a professional army, a chariot corps, and control reaching up through Canaan. Ramesses II reigns for sixty-six years and covers the country in monuments to himself. Egyptian power in this period is the reason Canaan is garrisoned rather than free.
- The Hittites
- The other superpower, in what is now Turkey, and Egypt's rival for the Levant. The two fight the largest chariot battle of the ancient world at Kadesh, then sign a treaty whose text survives from both sides. Hittite treaty form, with its historical prologue, stipulations, witnesses, blessings, and curses, is the shape the Sinai covenant takes, which is one of the stronger arguments for the antiquity of that material.
- The Aegean
- Mycenaean Greece: warrior kings in stone citadels at Mycenae and Pylos, keeping palace accounts in Linear B. The world of the Trojan War stories, whatever lies behind them.
- Further afield
- The Shang dynasty in China is casting extraordinary bronzes and writing questions to its ancestors on ox bones. In Mesoamerica the Olmec are beginning the first civilisation of the Americas.