C. S. Lewis Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Клайв Стейплз Льюис

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СКАЧАТЬ Joshua went and presented themselves in the tent of meeting, ¹⁵and the LORD appeared at the tent in a pillar of cloud; the pillar of cloud stood at the entrance to the tent.

      16 The LORD said to Moses, “Soon you will lie down with your ancestors. Then this people will begin to prostitute themselves to the foreign gods in their midst, the gods of the land into which they are going; they will forsake me, breaking my covenant that I have made with them. ¹⁷My anger will be kindled against them in that day. I will forsake them and hide my face from them; they will become easy prey, and many terrible troubles will come upon them. In that day they will say, ‘Have not these troubles come upon us because our God is not in our midst?’ ¹⁸On that day I will surely hide my face on account of all the evil they have done by turning to other gods. ¹⁹Now therefore write this song, and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, in order that this song may be a witness for me against the Israelites. ²⁰For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I promised on oath to their ancestors, and they have eaten their fill and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, despising me and breaking my covenant. ²¹And when many terrible troubles come upon them, this song will confront them as a witness, because it will not be lost from the mouths of their descendants. For I know what they are inclined to do even now, before I have brought them into the land that I promised them on oath.” ²²That very day Moses wrote this song and taught it to the Israelites.

      23 Then the LORD commissioned Joshua son of Nun and said, “Be strong and bold, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them; I will be with you.”

      24 When Moses had finished writing down in a book the words of this law to the very end, ²⁵Moses commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, ²⁶“Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God; let it remain there as a witness against you. ²⁷For I know well how rebellious and stubborn you are. If you already have been so rebellious toward the LORD while I am still alive among you, how much more after my death! ²⁸Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officials, so that I may recite these words in their hearing and call heaven and earth to witness against them. ²⁹For I know that after my death you will surely act corruptly, turning aside from the way that I have commanded you. In time to come trouble will befall you, because you will do what is evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger through the work of your hands.”

      30 Then Moses recited the words of this song, to the very end, in the hearing of the whole assembly of Israel:

32 Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak;

      let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

       ² May my teaching drop like the rain,

      my speech condense like the dew;

      like gentle rain on grass,

      like showers on new growth.

       ³ For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;

      ascribe greatness to our God!

       ⁴ The Rock, his work is perfect,

      and all his ways are just.

      A faithful God, without deceit,

      just and upright is he;

⁵ yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him,[68]

      a perverse and crooked generation.

       ⁶ Do you thus repay the LORD,

      O foolish and senseless people?

      Is not he your father, who created you,

      who made you and established you?

       ⁷ Remember the days of old,

      consider the years long past;

      ask your father, and he will inform you;

      your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸ When the Most High[69] apportioned the nations,

      when he divided humankind,

      he fixed the boundaries of the peoples

according to the number of the gods;[70]

       ⁹ the LORD’s own portion was his people,

      Jacob his allotted share.

      CONSIDER THE YEARS LONG PAST

      In order to understand fully what Man’s power over Nature, and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors.

      —from The Abolition of Man

      For reflection

Deuteronomy 32:4–7

¹⁰ He sustained[71] him in a desert land,

      in a howling wilderness waste;

      he shielded him, cared for him,

      guarded him as the apple of his eye.

      ¹¹ As an eagle stirs up its nest,

      and hovers over its young;

      as it spreads its wings, takes them up,

      and bears them aloft on its pinions,

      ¹² the LORD alone guided him;

      no foreign god was with him.

      ¹³ He set him atop the heights of the land,

and fed him with[72] produce of the field;

      he nursed him with honey from the crags,

      with oil from flinty rock;

      ¹⁴ curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,

      with fat of lambs and rams;

      Bashan bulls and goats,

      together with the choicest wheat—

      you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.

¹⁵ СКАЧАТЬ