Deuteronomy 32:23-33

32:23 I will increase their ¹  disasters,

I will use up my arrows on them.

32:24 They will be starved by famine,

eaten by plague, and bitterly stung; ² 

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 ³  both the young man and the virgin,

the infant and the gray-haired man.

The Weakness of Other Gods

32:26 “I said, ‘I want to cut them in pieces. ⁴ 

I want to make people forget they ever existed.

32:27 But I fear the reaction ⁵  of their enemies,

for ⁶  their adversaries would misunderstand

and say, “Our power is great, ⁷ 

and the Lord has not done all this!”’

32:28 They are a nation devoid of wisdom,

and there is no understanding among them.

32:29 I wish that they were wise and could understand this,

and that they could comprehend what will happen to them.”

32:30 How can one man chase a thousand of them, ⁸ 

and two pursue ten thousand;

unless their Rock had delivered them up, ⁹ 

and the Lord had handed them over?

32:31 For our enemies’ ¹⁰  rock is not like our Rock,

as even our enemies concede.

32:32 For their vine is from the stock ¹¹  of Sodom,

and from the fields of Gomorrah. ¹² 

Their grapes contain venom,

their clusters of grapes are bitter.

32:33 Their wine is snakes’ poison,

the deadly venom of cobras.

[32:23]  ¹ tn Heb “upon them.”

[32:24]  ² tn The Hebrew term קֶטֶב (qetev) is probably metaphorical here for the sting of a disease (HALOT 1091-92 s.v.).

[32:25]  ³ tn A verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text; for purposes of English style one suitable to the context is supplied.

[32:26]  ⁴ tc The LXX reads “I said I would scatter them.” This reading is followed by a number of English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT, CEV).

[32:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “anger.”

[32:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “lest.”

[32:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “Our hand is high.” Cf. NAB “Our own hand won the victory.”

[32:30]  ⁶ tn The words “man” and “of them” are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[32:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “sold them” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT).

[32:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “their,” but the referent (enemies) is specified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[32:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “vine.”

[32:32]  ⁹ sn Sodom…Gomorrah. The term “vine” is a reference to the pagan deities which, the passage says, find their ultimate source in Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, in the soil of perversion exemplified by these places (cf. Gen 18:20; 19:4-28; Isa 1:10; 3:9; Jer 23:14; Lam 4:6; Ezek 16:44-52; Matt 10:15; 11:23-24).