The Wilderness Years

For I knowe thy rebellion and thy stiffe necke: beholde, I being yet aliue with you this day, ye are rebellious against the Lord: howe much more then after my death?

Gather vnto me all the Elders of your tribes, and your officers, that I may speake these wordes in their audience, and call heauen and earth to recorde against them.

For I am sure that after my death ye will vtterly be corrupt and turne from the way, which I haue commanded you: therefore euill will come vpon you at the length, because ye will comit euill in the sight of the Lord, by prouoking him to anger through the worke of your hands.

Thus Moses spake in the audience of all the congregation of Israel the wordes of this song, vntill he had ended them.

Hearken, ye heauens, and I will speake: and let the earth heare the words of my mouth.

My doctrine shall drop as the raine, and my speach shall stil as the dew, as the showre vpon the herbes, and as the great raine vpon the grasse.

For I will publish the name of the Lord: giue ye glorie vnto our God.

Perfect is the worke of the mighty God: for all his wayes are iudgement. God is true, and without wickednesse: iust, and righteous is he.

They haue corrupted them selues towarde him by their vice, not being his children, but a frowarde and crooked generation.

Doe ye so rewarde the Lord, O foolish people and vnwise? is not he thy father, that hath bought thee? he hath made thee, and proportioned thee.

Remember the dayes of olde: consider the yeeres of so many generations: aske thy father, and he will shewe thee: thine Elders, and they will tell thee.

When the most hie God deuided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sonnes of Adam, he appoynted the borders of the people, according to the nomber of the children of Israel.

For the Lordes portion is his people: Iaakob is the lot of his inheritance.

He found him in ye land of ye wildernes, in a waste, and roaring wildernes: he led him about, he taught him, and kept him as ye apple of his eye.

As an eagle stereth vp her nest, flootereth ouer her birdes, stretcheth out her wings, taketh them, and beareth them on her wings,

So the Lord alone led him, and there was no strange god with him.

He caryed him vp to the hie places of the earth, that he might eate the fruites of the fieldes, and he caused him to sucke hony out of the stone, and oyle out of the hard rocke:

Butter of kine, and milke of sheepe with fat of the lambes, and rammes fed in Bashan, and goates, with the fat of the graines of wheat, and the red licour of the grape hast thou drunke.

But he that should haue bene vpright, when he waxed fat, spurned with his heele: thou art fat, thou art grosse, thou art laden with fatnes: therefore he forsooke God that made him, and regarded not the strong God of his saluation.

They prouoked him with strange gods: they prouoked him to anger with abominations.

They offred vnto deuils, not to God, but to gods whome they knew not: new gods that came newly vp, whome their fathers feared not.

Thou hast forgotten the mightie God that begate thee, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.

The Lord then sawe it, and was angrie, for the prouocation of his sonnes and of his daughters.

And he said, I will hide my face from the: I will see what their ende shalbe: for they are a frowarde generation, children in who is no faith.

They haue moued me to ielousie with that which is not God: they haue prouoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will moue them to ielousie with those which are no people: I wil prouoke them to anger with a foolish nation.