Nehemiah 9

1 Now in the twenty and fourth day of ^athis month the children of Israel were assembled with ^bfasting, and with sackclothes, and ^cearth upon them.

2 And the seed of Israel ^dseparated themselves from all strangers,¹ and stood and ^econfessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.

3 And they stood up in their place, and ^fread in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed, and ²worshipped the LORD their God.³

4 ¶ Then stood up upon the ^gstairs,⁴ of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and ^hcried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God.

5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up⁵ and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

6 Thou, even thou, ⁱart LORD alone: thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou ^kpreservest them all;⁶ and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

7 Thou art the LORD the God, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham;

8 And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him, to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and ^lhast performed thy words; for thou art righteous:⁷

9 And^m didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red sea;

10 And showedst signs⁸ and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt ⁿproudly against them: so didst thou get thee a name,⁹ as it is this day.

11 And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.

12 Moreover, thou ^oleddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

13 Thou^p camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and ^qtrue laws, good statutes and commandments:

14 And madest known unto them thy ^rholy sabbath,¹ and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

15 And ^sgavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and ^tbroughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should ^ugo in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give ²them.³

16 But they and our fathers ^xdealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments,

17 And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them;⁴ but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage:⁵ but thou art ^ya God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and ^zforsookest them not.

18 Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations;

19 Yet^a thou, in thy manifold mercies, forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way, neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way wherein they should go.

20 Thou gavest also thy ^bgood Spirit⁶ to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.

21 Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they ^clacked nothing: their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.⁷

22 Moreover, thou ^dgavest them kingdoms and nations, and didst divide them into ⁸corners: so they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.

23 Their children also ^emultipliedst thou as the stars of heaven, and ^fbroughtest them into the land concerning which thou hadst ^gpromised to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.

24 So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou ^hsubduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

25 And they took ⁱstrong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells⁹ digged,¹ vineyards, and olive-yards, and fruit trees in abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.

26 Nevertheless they ^kwere disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and ^lcast thy law behind their backs, and ^mslew thy prophets, which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.

27 Therefore thou ⁿdeliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed² them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and, according to thy manifold mercies, thou gavest them ^osaviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

28 But after they had ^prest, they ^qdid evil again before thee;³ therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and ^rmany times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;

29 And ^stestifiedst against them, that thou ^tmightest bring them again unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which ^uif a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear:

30 Yet many years didst thou ^xforbear them, and ^ytestifiedst against them by thy Spirit⁴ in thy prophets; yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands.

31 Nevertheless, for thy ^zgreat mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art ^aa gracious and merciful God.

32 Now therefore, ^bour God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God,⁵ who keepest covenant and mercy, let not ^call the trouble⁶ seem little before thee that hath come upon us,⁷ on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the ^dtime of the kings of Assyria unto this day.

33 Howbeit thou art ^ejust in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly.

34 Neither have ^four kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.

35 For they ^ghave not served thee in their kingdom,⁸ and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them; neither turned they from their wicked works.

36 Behold, we are ^hservants this day; and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers, to eat the fruit thereof, and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it:

37 And it yieldeth much increase unto ⁱthe kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: also they ^khave dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure,⁹ and we are in great distress.

38 And ^lbecause of all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, Levites, and priests, seal¹ unto it.²