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

¹Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the earth hear the words of my mouth. ²May my teaching drop like the rain, my speech condense like the dew; like gentle rain on grass, like showers on new growth. ³For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God!

⁴The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he; ⁵yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him, a perverse and crooked generation. ⁶Do you thus repay the LORD, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you? ⁷Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you. ⁸When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; ⁹the Lord's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.

¹⁰He sustained him in a desert land, in a howling wilderness waste; he shielded him, cared for him, guarded him as the apple of his eye. ¹¹As 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, ¹²the LORD alone guided him; no foreign god was with him. ¹³He set him atop the heights of the land, and fed him with produce of the field; he nursed him with honey from the crags, with oil from flinty rock; ¹⁴curds 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.

^21b But whatever anyone dares to boast of - I am speaking as a fool - I also dare to boast of that. ²² Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. ²³ Are they ministers of Christ? I am talking like a madman - I am a better one: with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death. ²⁴ Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; ²⁶ on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; ²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. ²⁸ And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I am not indignant?

³⁰ If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ³¹ The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be he forever!) knows that I do not lie. ³² In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, ³³ but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

¹¹ As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. ¹² So he said, "A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. ¹³ He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, 'Do business with these until I come back.' ¹⁴ But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to rule over us.' ¹⁵ When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. ¹⁶ The first came forward and said, 'Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.' ¹⁷ He said to him, 'Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.' ¹⁸ Then the second came, saying, 'Lord, your pound has made five pounds.' ¹⁹ He said to him, 'And you, rule over five cities.' ²⁰ Then the other came, saying, 'Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, ²¹ for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.' ²² He said to him, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? ²³ Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.' ²⁴ He said to the bystanders, 'Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.' ²⁵ (And they said to him, 'Lord, he has ten pounds!') ²⁶ 'I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ²⁷ But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them - bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.'"