Ain'ta That Good News?!: No God Beside Me

Deuteronomy 32:18-20, 28-39 (NRSV)

Praise the rock that is God

You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;
you forgot the God who gave you birth.

The Lord saw it, and was jealous
he spurned his sons and daughters.
He said: I will hide my face from them,
I will see what their end will be;

for they are a perverse generation,
children in whom there is no faithfulness. ...

They are a nation void of sense;
there is no understanding in them.
If they were wise, they would understand this;
they would discern what the end would be.
How could one have routed a thousand,
and two put a myriad to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
the Lord had given them up?
Indeed their rock is not like our Rock;
our enemies are fools.
Their vine comes from the vinestock of Sodom,
from the vineyards of Gomorrah;
their grapes are grapes of poison,
their clusters are bitter;
their wine is the poison of serpents,
the cruel venom of asps.

Is not this laid up in store with me,
sealed up in my treasuries?
Vengeance is mine, and recompense,
for the time when their foot shall slip;
because the day of their calamity is at hand,
their doom comes swiftly.

Indeed the Lord will vindicate his people,
have compassion on his servants,
when he sees that their power is gone,
neither bond nor free remaining.
Then he will say: Where are their gods,
the rock in which they took refuge,
who ate the fat of their sacrifices,
and drank the wine of their libations?
Let them rise up and help you,
let them be your protection!

See now that I, even I, am he;
there is no god besides me.
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and no one can deliver from my hand.