Passage

Wine described as venom

Source and translation

World English Bible, Protestant Edition · Public domain · en

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³³Their wine is the poison of serpents, the cruel venom of asps.

Deuteronomy 32:33World English Bible, Protestant Edition

The scene

The song calls their wine the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps.

To understand

The preceding line calls their grapes poisonous and their clusters bitter, linking the vine to Sodom and Gomorrah. The image follows the crop from vine and grapes to its wine.

A question

What happens to the vine’s fruit as the song moves from grapes to wine?