The song of Moses

1 And when the time for Moses the prophet’s death was near, when he would be gathered from this world, he said in his heart, “I will not testify against this people with witnesses that taste death in this world, look, I testify against them with witnesses which do not taste death in this world, and who are destined to be renewed in the world to come.” Isaiah the prophet, when he prophesied in the congregation of Israel, attributed hearing to the heavens, and attentiveness to the earth; because earth was nearest and heaven more remote: but Moses the prophet, when he now prophesied in the congregation of Israel, attributed hearing to the earth, and attentiveness to the heavens; because heaven was nearest and earth more remote; for it is written, “Listen, heavens, and I will speak, and hear, earth, the words of my mouth. 2 My teaching will strike the rebellious like heavy rain; but will be welcomed gladly by those who receive instruction, as the dew: my words will be like the falling rain of the wind that blows on the grass in the month of Marheshvan, and as the drops of the latter rain which water the growing plants of the earth in Nisan.”

3 Woe to the wicked who mention the Holy Name with blasphemies. Therefore Moses, who was the teacher of Israel, would not permit himself to pronounce the Holy Name until he had dedicated his mouth at the beginning of his song with eighty-five letters, making twenty-one words, and afterward he said, “In the Name of the Lord I call on you, house of Israel, to give glory to our God and proclaim His greatness.” 4 Moses the prophet said, “When I ascended the mountain of Sinai, I saw the Lord of all the worlds, the Lord, dividing the day into four portions; three hours devoted to the Torah, three to judgment, three to making marriage bonds between man and woman and deciding whom to raise up or bring low, and three hours to caring for every created thing.” For it is written, “The Mighty One whose works are perfect, for all His ways are just, a faithful God in whose presence no injustice arises; He is pure and upright.” 5 The beloved children have corrupted their good works, a blemish is found on them; a perverse generation that has altered their works; so the order of this world’s judgment will be altered against them. 6 Is this really how you repay the Name of the Word of the Lord, foolish people, and receive the Torah, yet not be made wise? Is He not your Father who bought you, who created you and perfected you?

The nations and Israel’s portion

7 Remember the ancient days; consider the years of every generation; read the books of the Torah, and they will teach you, and the books of the prophets, and they will tell you. 8 When the Most High allotted the world to the nations which descended from the sons of Noah, in the separation of the writings and languages of humankind in the generation of the division, He cast the lot among the seventy angels, the leaders of the nations to whom the revelation to oversee the city was entrusted, even at that time He established the limits of the nations according to the total number of the seventy souls of Israel who went down into Egypt.⁠a 9 And when the holy people fell to the lot of the Lord of all the world, Michael opened his lips and said, “Let the good portion of the Name of the Lord’s Word be with Him.” Gabriel opened his lips with thanksgiving, and said, “Let the house of Jacob be the lot of His inheritance.”

10 He found them dwelling in the wilderness, in the solitude, the place of howling demons and jackals, the parched place; He surrounded them with His seven glorious clouds; He taught them His Torah; He kept them as the eyelid protects the pupil of His eye. 11 As an eagle stirs up and cares for his nest, and hovers over his young, so His Shekinah stirred up the tents of Israel, and the shadow of His Shekinah covered them; and as an eagle spreads his wings over his young ones, bears them and carries them on his wings, so He bore them and carried them, and made them live on the fortified places of the land of Israel. 12 The Word of the Lord settled them alone in their land, and did not allow followers of foreign worship to settle among them. 13 He settled them in the fortified places of the land of Israel, and fed them the fine produce of His field, and nourished them with the honey of its fruits which grow even on the rocks and with the oil of its olive trees, and from branches growing out of the rocks. 14 He gave them thick cream from cows from the goods captured from their kings, and the milk of the firstborn of the sheep from what was seized from their rulers, with choice fatlings and rams, fat lambs from Mathnan, and goats. Moses the prophet said, “If the people of Israel will observe the commandments of the Torah, it is foretold that their wheat grains will be like the kidneys of oxen, and that from one bunch of grapes will come a kor of red wine.”

Israel’s unfaithfulness

15 But the house of Israel grew rich and wicked; they prospered much and possessed wealth, and forsook the worship of God who created them, and provoked their Redeemer to anger. 16 They made Him jealous with idolatry, by their abominations they made Him angry. 17 They sacrificed to idols, resembling demons, which are of no benefit, to idols which they had not known, new gods recently made, with which your ancestors had nothing to do. 18 But you have forgotten the worship of the Strong One who created you. You have forgotten the Word of God who made your body with many cavities. 19 And when it was made known to the Lord, He was angry, provoked by His beloved children who were called sons and daughters in His Name.

20 And He said, “I will withdraw My favor from them; let Me see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who have no faithfulness. 21 They have made Me jealous by what is not God, they have angered Me by their worthless things: I also will provoke them to jealousy by a people which has not been a people, I will provoke them by the foolish Babylonian people. 22 For an east wind strong as fire will go out from My presence, and blaze with the force of My anger, and burn to the depths of Sheol; it will consume the land with its produce, and set the foundations of the mountains in flame. 23 And when they dwell in Babylon they will serve their idols; for I have spoken in My Word to array calamities against them, the plague-arrows of My vengeance to destroy them,

Exile and the kingdoms

24 “I will make them go into captivity in Media and Elam, from the captivity of Babylon. The house of Agag will oppress them, like demons swollen with hunger, destroying demons consumed by birds, midday demons afflicted with evil spirits, and night demons swollen with evil spirits. And I will send against them the Greeks, who bite with their teeth like wild beasts, and will exile them through the Edomites venomous as venomous snakes, the serpents of the dust. 25 The stroke of the sword will consume the people exiled outside the land of Israel, and I will fill those left in the land of Israel with the terror of death, in the chambers here and there where they sleep; their young men will perish, their young women, their nursing infants, with their men and their elders. 26 I have spoken in My Word to withhold from them My Holy Spirit, I will spare only a few of them, as a man who reaps his field leaves one corner of the ground, so I will erase their memory from the book of humanity’s genealogy, 27 if not for the enemy’s anger and the danger that their oppressors would boast against Me, and say, ‘Our hand has taken vengeance upon our adversaries, and all this has not been decreed by the Lord,’

28 “for they are a people lost to good counsel and devoid of understanding. 29 If only they were intelligent in the Torah, and understood what their final end will be! 30 How will one enemy pursue a thousand of them, and two put ten thousand of them to flight, unless their Strong One hands them over and the Lord surrenders them! 31 For the idols of the nations are not like Him who is the Strength of Israel; for the Strength of Israel, when they have sinned, brings punishment on them; but when they stretch out their hands in prayer, He answers and rescues them. But the idols of the peoples who follow foreign worship are of no use: but because we have provoked Him, and have not returned to His service, our adversaries are our witnesses and our judges.

32 “For the works of this people are like the works of the people of Sodom, and their evil counsels like those of the people of Gomorrah; their wicked thoughts are as serpents’ venom; therefore their punishment, which brings bereavement, is bitter to them. 33 The cup of the curse they drink on the day of their punishment will be as bitter as serpents’ venom when they are drunk with their wine. They are as cruel as adders’ venom. 34 Have not all their secret deeds been made known to Me? They are sealed and stored in My treasury! 35 Vengeance is Mine to carry out, and I will repay them at the time when their foot stumbles into exile; for the day of their destruction is coming near, and the evil which is prepared for them comes quickly.”

Judgment and redemption

36 For the Word of the Lord mercifully judges the case of His people Israel, and there will be compassion in His presence over the calamity He has appointed for His servants; for He knows that in the time when they have sinned the stroke of their enemies will be heavy on them, and they have no help left, and the faithful will have failed with their good works and be scattered and forsaken. 37 And the enemy will say, “Where is the fear of Israel, their Strength in whom they trusted, 38 who ate the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their libations? Let Him now rise up and help you, let Him shield you by His Word.”

39 When the Word of the Lord reveals Himself to redeem His people, He will say to all the nations, “Look now, I am He who is, who was, and who will be, and there is no other God beside Me: I, in My Word, kill and make alive; I struck the people of the house of Israel, and I will heal them at the end of the days; and no one will be able to rescue Gog and his armies from My hand, those who came to wage war against them. 40 I have lifted My hand with an oath to heaven, and have said, ‘As I exist, I will never abolish My oath.’ 41 If I sharpen My sword like lightning and My hand is strong in judgment, I will bring retribution on those who afflict My people, and repay their enemies as their wickedness deserves. 42 I will make My arrows drunk with their blood, and My sword will consume their flesh; with the blood of those killed and the captives, from the beginning of the punishment of My people’s enemies.” 43 Nations, praise His people, the house of Israel; for He has avenged the blood of His servants that was shed. He has remembered and returned just vengeance on His adversaries, and by His Word He will make atonement for His land, and for His people.

The song’s instruction

44 And Moses came from the Tent of Instruction, and spoke all the words of this song, in the hearing of the people, he and Joshua son of Nun. 45 And Moses finished speaking all these words with all Israel, 46 and said to them, “Take to heart all the words with which I bear witness to you today, that you may instruct your children, so that they may carefully follow all the words of this Torah. 47 For there is no empty word in the Torah, except for those who violate it; for it is your life, and by this word you will live long in the land that you cross the Jordan to inherit.”

Moses’ final ascent

48 And the Lord spoke with Moses on the seventh of the month Adar, on the same day, saying, 49 It was when the Word of the Lord had said to him, “Go up to this mount Ibraee, the mountain of Nebo,” and he thought in his heart, and said, “Perhaps this ascent will be like that to Mount Sinai.” And he said, “I will go and sanctify the people.” But the Word of the Lord said to him, “Not at all! Go up and view the land of Canaan, which I have given to the children of Israel as an inheritance. 50 And you will sleep in the mountain to which you go up, and be gathered to your people, just as Aaron your brother has slept in the mountain of Amanus, and has been gathered to his people.”

Moses at once opened his mouth in prayer, and said, “Lord of all the world, I ask that I may not be as a man who had only one son, whom he went and redeemed at great cost when the son was a captive; he taught him wisdom and skill, betrothed a wife to him, planted for him a royal pavilion, built him a marriage house, prepared his marriage bed and set up a canopy over it, invited his companions, baked his bread, slaughtered his animals for the feast, and mixed his wine; yet, when the time came for his son to rejoice with his wife, and the guests were about to begin the meal; that man was summoned to go to the court, in the king’s presence and be sentenced to death; they would not delay executing his sentence that he might see the happiness of his son. This is how I have labored for this people; I have led them by Your Word out of Egypt, and taught this people Your Torah, and built for them the Tent to Your Name; but now that the time has come to cross the Jordan, I am punished with death! Let it please You to withhold this sentence from me until I have crossed the Jordan, to see the good of Israel and afterward I will die.” 51 The Lord of the world answered him, and said, “Because you acted defiantly with My Word among the children of Israel, at the Waters of Contention at Rekem in the desert of Zin, and did not sanctify Me among them, 52 therefore you may look across at it, but you must not enter into the land that I give to the children of Israel.”