Nehemiah 9

1 On the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel gathered together, fasting and in sackcloth. [a] 2 And the children of Israel separated themselves from every foreigner, and they stood and spoke out openly about their sins and about the lawless deeds of their fathers. [b] 3 And they stood in their places and read from the book of the law of the Lord their God; and they went on speaking out openly to the Lord and bowing down to the Lord their God.

4 And Jeshua stood on the stairway of the Levites, and the sons of Kadmiel, and Shecaniah son of Sherebiah, and the sons of Chenani; and they cried out with a loud voice to the Lord their God. [c] 5 And the Levites Jeshua and Kadmiel said, “Stand up, bless the Lord your God from age to age! And they will bless the name of your glory, and lift it high with every blessing and praise.” [d]

6 And Ezra said, “You yourself are the Lord, you alone. You made the heaven, and the heaven of heaven, and all their array; the earth and everything on it; the seas and everything in them. And you give life to them all, and the armies of the heavens bow down to you. [e] 7 You are the Lord God. You chose Abram, and brought him out of the land of the Chaldeans, and laid on him the name Abraham. 8 And you found his heart faithful before you, and you made a covenant with him, to give him the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Jebusites and the Girgashites — and to his seed. And you have made your words stand, for you are righteous. [f]

9 And you saw the humiliation of our fathers in Egypt, and you heard their cry at the Red Sea. 10 And you gave signs in Egypt against Pharaoh and against all his servants and against all the people of his land, because you knew that they had dealt arrogantly with them; and you made yourself a name, as it is this day. [g] 11 And you tore the sea open in front of them, and they went through the middle of the sea on dry ground; and those who chased after them you threw into the deep, like a stone into mighty water. 12 And you led them by a pillar of cloud by day, and by a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the road they were to walk.

13 And you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke to them out of heaven, and you gave them straight judgments and laws of truth, decrees and good commands. 14 And you made your holy sabbath known to them, and you commanded them commands and decrees and a law, by the hand of Moses your servant. 15 And you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and you brought them water out of a rock for their thirst. And you told them to go in and take the land as their own, the land over which you had stretched out your hand to give it to them. [h]

16 But they and our fathers acted arrogantly, and stiffened their necks, and did not listen to your commands. 17 They refused to listen, and they did not remember the wonders you did among them; and they stiffened their necks, and set up a leader to go back to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God merciful and full of compassion, slow to anger and full of mercy, and you did not abandon them. [i] 18 And more than that: they made themselves a cast-metal calf and said, ‘These are the gods who brought us up out of Egypt’ — and they caused great provocations.

19 Yet you, in your many compassions, did not abandon them in the wilderness. You did not turn the pillar of the cloud away from them by day, to lead them on the road, nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the road they were to walk. 20 And you gave your good Spirit to teach them understanding, and you did not hold back your manna from their mouth, and you gave them water for their thirst. 21 And you fed them forty years in the wilderness; they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet were not worn raw. [j]

22 And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, and divided them out to them; and they took as their own the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan. 23 And you made their children as many as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land of which you had spoken to their fathers, and they took it as their own. [k] 24 And you crushed before them those who lived in the land, the Canaanites; and you gave them into their hands — them and their kings and the peoples of the land — to do with them whatever seemed good to them. 25 And they captured high cities, and took for their own houses full of every good thing, cisterns cut in the rock, vineyards and olive groves and every fruit tree in abundance. So they ate and were filled, and they grew fat, and they lived softly in your great goodness. [l]

26 But they changed, and they turned away from you, and they threw your law behind their backs. They killed your prophets, who had warned them so as to turn them back to you, and they caused great provocations. 27 So you gave them into the hand of those who afflicted them, and they afflicted them. And they cried out to you in the time of their affliction, and you heard from your heaven, and in your great compassions you gave them saviors, and you saved them out of the hand of those who afflicted them. 28 But as soon as they had rest, they turned back to doing what was evil in front of you; and you left them in the hands of their enemies, and those enemies ruled over them. And again they cried out to you, and you heard from heaven and rescued them, in your many compassions.

29 And you warned them, to turn them back to your law; and they did not listen. They sinned against your commands and against your judgments — which a man who does them will live by — and they turned a stubborn back, and they stiffened their necks, and they did not listen. [m] 30 And you drew out many years over them, and you warned them by your Spirit, by the hand of your prophets; and they did not give ear, and you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the land. 31 But you, in your many compassions, did not make an end of them, and you did not abandon them, for you are strong and merciful and full of compassion.

32 And now, our God — the strong, the great, the mighty and the fearful, who keeps your covenant and your mercy — do not let all the hardship look small in front of you, the hardship that has found us, and our kings and our leaders and our priests and our prophets and our fathers, and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day. [n] 33 And you are righteous in everything that has come upon us, for you have acted in truth, and it is we who have sinned. 34 And our kings and our leaders and our priests and our fathers did not keep your law, and they paid no attention to your commands, or to your testimonies, which you warned them by. 35 And they, in your kingdom and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the wide and rich land that you set in front of them — they did not serve you, and they did not turn from their evil practices.

36 See, we are slaves today. And the land that you gave to our fathers, to eat its fruit — 37 to the kings whom you set over us because of our sins. And they have power over our bodies and over our cattle as it pleases them, and we are in great affliction.” [o]