Nehemiah 9

²³So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and He granted our request.

²On the first day of the seventh month, Ezra the priest brought the Law before the assembly of men and women and all who could listen and understand.

⁶Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the Lord until evening, as did the elders of Israel; and they all sprinkled dust on their heads.

²While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

³And after they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

¹²That same day a Benjamite ran from the battle line all the way to Shiloh, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head.

²⁶Then the Israelites, all the people, went up to Bethel, where they sat weeping before the Lord. That day they fasted until evening and presented burnt offerings and peace offerings to the Lord.

³As soon as the people heard this law, they excluded from Israel all of foreign descent.

³So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.

⁴And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,

¹¹Now, therefore, make a confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers, and do His will. Separate yourselves from the people of the land and from your foreign wives.”

³⁰Thus I purified the priests and Levites from everything foreign, and I assigned specific duties to each of the priests and Levites.

²⁰While I was speaking, praying, confessing my sin and that of my people Israel, and presenting my petition before the Lord my God concerning His holy mountain—

²Indeed, the Israelites have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed has been mixed with the people of the land. And the leaders and officials have taken the lead in this unfaithfulness!”

³So Ezra read it aloud from daybreak until noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate, in front of the men and women and those who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

⁴Ezra the scribe stood on a high wooden platform built for this occasion. At his right side stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, and at his left were Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam.

⁷The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law as they stood in their places.

⁸So they read from the Book of the Law of God, explaining it and giving insight, so that the people could understand what was being read.

⁷The Levites—Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, and Pelaiah—instructed the people in the Law as they stood in their places.

⁸The Levites were Jeshua, Binnui, Kadmiel, Sherebiah, Judah, and Mattaniah, who, with his associates, led the songs of thanksgiving.

¹⁹And the Levites from the Kohathites and Korahites stood up to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, shouting in a very loud voice.

⁵Then the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting: Blessed be Your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

⁹The Levites: Jeshua son of Azaniah, Binnui of the sons of Henadad, Kadmiel,

¹⁰and their associates: Shebaniah, Hodiah, Kelita, Pelaiah, Hanan,

⁴³After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

¹Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.

²Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all His kind deeds—

⁶For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

²Who can describe the mighty acts of the Lord or fully proclaim His praise?

²⁵At that time Jesus declared, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

¹⁰This is what the Lord says: In this place you say is a wasteland without man or beast, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted—inhabited by neither man nor beast—there will be heard again

¹¹the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of the bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those bringing thank offerings into the house of the Lord, saying: ‘Give thanks to the Lord of Hosts, for the Lord is good; His loving devotion endures forever.’ For I will restore the land from captivity as in former times, says the Lord.

¹⁶“O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth.

¹In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

¹¹“Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for You created all things; by Your will they exist and were created.”

¹⁴Behold, to the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, and the earth and everything in it.

⁴Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

¹Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.

³¹And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan. But when they arrived in Haran, they settled there.

⁵No longer will you be called Abram, but your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.

²Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one; then I blessed him and multiplied him.

²And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,

³and told him, ‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you.’

¹⁵Yet the Lord has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. And He has chosen you, their descendants after them, above all the peoples, even to this day.

⁸“But you, O Israel, My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, descendant of Abraham My friend—

⁹I brought you from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners. I said, ‘You are My servant.’ I have chosen and not rejected you.

¹⁸Thus by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be strongly encouraged.

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

¹⁹the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

⁶Abram believed the Lord, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

¹⁴Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and soul that not one of the good promises the Lord your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed.

⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

⁴³Thus the Lord gave Israel all the land He had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of it and settled in it.

⁴⁴And the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as He had sworn to their fathers. None of their enemies could stand against them, for the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand.

⁷The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings.

⁸I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.

²⁵God saw the Israelites and took notice.

¹⁰As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up and saw the Egyptians marching after them, and they were terrified and cried out to the Lord.

¹¹They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us into the wilderness to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?

¹⁶Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—has appeared to me and said: I have surely attended to you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt.

³⁴I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’

¹⁵Now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who made for Yourself a name renowned to this day, we have sinned; we have acted wickedly.

²⁰You performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and You do so to this very day, both in Israel and among all mankind. And You have made a name for Yourself, as is the case to this day.

²But Pharaoh replied, “Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.”

¹Then the Lord said to Moses,

²“Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. You are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal-zephon.

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

¹¹Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for He did this when they treated Israel with arrogance.”

¹³He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

²¹Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove back the sea with a strong east wind that turned it into dry land. So the waters were divided,

²²and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with walls of water on their right and on their left.

²⁷So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea returned to its normal state. As the Egyptians were retreating, the Lord swept them into the sea.

²⁸The waters flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

⁶He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the waters on foot; there we rejoiced in Him.

²⁹By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land; but when the Egyptians tried to follow, they were drowned.

²¹And the Lord went before them in a pillar of cloud to guide their way by day, and in a pillar of fire to give them light by night, so that they could travel by day or night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place before the people.

¹⁹You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go.

⁷He led them on a straight path to reach a city where they could live.

¹⁴He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

³⁹He spread a cloud as a covering and a fire to light up the night.

⁸Let me hear Your loving devotion in the morning, for I have put my trust in You. Teach me the way I should walk, for to You I lift up my soul.

¹⁶⁰The entirety of Your word is truth, and all Your righteous judgments endure forever.

¹And God spoke all these words:

¹¹and be prepared by the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

¹²⁷Therefore I love Your commandments more than gold, even the purest gold.

¹²⁸Therefore I admire all Your precepts and hate every false way.

¹¹And I gave them My statutes and made known to them My ordinances—for the man who does these things will live by them.

¹²I also gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between us, so that they would know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

⁷The Law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making wise the simple.

⁸The precepts of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.

⁸Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

⁹Six days you shall labor and do all your work,

³Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on that day He rested from all the work of creation that He had accomplished.

¹²I also gave them My Sabbaths as a sign between us, so that they would know that I am the Lord who sanctifies them.

²⁰Keep My Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us, so that you may know that I am the Lord your God.’

²⁹Understand that the Lord has given you the Sabbath; that is why on the sixth day He will give you bread for two days. On the seventh day, everyone must stay where he is; no one may leave his place.”

²³He told them, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of complete rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake, and boil what you want to boil. Then set aside whatever remains and keep it until morning.’”

³They all ate the same spiritual food

⁴and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

⁸See, I have placed the land before you. Enter and possess the land that the Lord swore He would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to their descendants after them.”

⁶Behold, I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. And when you strike the rock, water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.

¹⁴When the layer of dew had evaporated, there were thin flakes on the desert floor, as fine as frost on the ground.

¹⁵When the Israelites saw it, they asked one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. So Moses told them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.

⁴Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test whether or not they will follow My instructions.

³¹Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

³²Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.

²⁹You admonished them to turn back to Your law, but they were arrogant and disobeyed Your commandments. They sinned against Your ordinances, by which a man will live if he practices them. They turned a stubborn shoulder; they stiffened their necks and would not obey.

¹¹But My people would not listen to Me, and Israel would not obey Me.

¹²So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.

¹⁵As it has been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion.”

²⁷For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you are already rebelling against the Lord while I am still alive, how much more will you rebel after my death!

¹⁰You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his officials, and all the people of his land, for You knew they had acted with arrogance against our fathers. You made a name for Yourself that endures to this day.

⁵But because of your hard and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

¹³So rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion. And He relents from sending disaster.

⁵For You, O Lord, are kind and forgiving, rich in loving devotion to all who call on You.

⁸The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in loving devotion.

⁹The Lord is good to all; His compassion rests on all He has made.

¹⁵But You, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness.

⁶Then the Lord passed in front of Moses and called out: “The Lord, the Lord God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

⁷maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

¹⁹At Horeb they made a calf and worshiped a molten image.

²⁰They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.

⁴He took the gold from their hands, and with an engraving tool he fashioned it into a molten calf. And they said, “These, O Israel, are your gods, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

⁵When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before the calf and proclaimed: “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”

³¹So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Oh, what a great sin these people have committed! They have made gods of gold for themselves.

³²Yet now, if You would only forgive their sin.... But if not, please blot me out of the book that You have written.”

⁷And I said to them: ‘Each of you must throw away the abominations before his eyes, and you must not defile yourselves with the idols of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’

⁸But they rebelled against Me and refused to listen. None of them cast away the abominations before their eyes, and they did not forsake the idols of Egypt. So I resolved to pour out My wrath upon them and vent My anger against them in the land of Egypt.

¹²And the Lord said to me, “Get up and go down from here at once, for your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. How quickly they have turned aside from the way that I commanded them! They have made for themselves a molten image.”

¹³The Lord also said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are indeed a stiff-necked people.

⁴⁵And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.

²⁷So You delivered them into the hands of enemies who oppressed them, and in their time of distress they cried out to You. From heaven You heard them, and in Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who saved them from the hands of their enemies.

⁶“Because I, the Lord, do not change, you descendants of Jacob have not been destroyed.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel.

¹⁴And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have already heard that You, O Lord, are in the midst of this people, that You, O Lord, have been seen face to face, that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁸Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.

¹⁰Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God. May Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

¹⁷And I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put that Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself.

¹¹Then His people remembered the days of old, the days of Moses. Where is He who brought them through the sea with the shepherds of His flock? Where is the One who set His Holy Spirit among them,

¹²who sent His glorious arm to lead them by the right hand of Moses, who divided the waters before them to gain for Himself everlasting renown,

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

²¹For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

¹⁷The poor and needy seek water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the Lord, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.

¹⁸I will open rivers on the barren heights, and fountains in the middle of the valleys. I will turn the desert into a pool of water, and the dry land into flowing springs.

⁷Indeed, the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast wilderness. The Lord your God has been with you these forty years, and you have lacked nothing.

⁴Your clothing did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.

⁵For forty years I led you in the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out.

¹⁰Young lions go lacking and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

³³Your children will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.

³⁴In keeping with the forty days you spied out the land, you shall bear your guilt forty years—a year for each day—and you will experience My alienation.

¹⁸He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness.

²¹Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

²²“Let us pass through your land. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will stay on the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”

⁴⁴He gave them the lands of the nations, that they might inherit the fruit of others’ labor,

²³So Joshua took the entire land, in keeping with all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to the allotments to their tribes. Then the land had rest from war.

⁶⁵Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

¹Then we turned and went up the road to Bashan, and Og king of Bashan and his whole army came out to meet us in battle at Edrei.

²But the Lord said to me, “Do not fear him, for I have delivered him into your hand, along with all his people and his land. Do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived in Heshbon.”

¹⁰He struck down many nations and slaughtered mighty kings:

¹¹Sihon king of the Amorites, Og king of Bashan, and all the kings of Canaan.

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

⁵And the Lord took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

⁸And to you and your descendants I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as an eternal possession; and I will be their God.”

⁷Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your offspring.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

¹⁵for all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever.

¹⁶I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your offspring could be counted.

¹Then the whole congregation of Israel assembled at Shiloh and set up the Tent of Meeting there. And though the land was subdued before them,

⁴³Thus the Lord gave Israel all the land He had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of it and settled in it.

¹⁸“Is not the Lord your God with you, and has He not granted you rest on every side? For He has given the inhabitants of the land into my hand, and the land has been subdued before the Lord and His people.

²With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.

³For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.

²³So Joshua took the entire land, in keeping with all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to the allotments to their tribes. Then the land had rest from war.

³¹But I will bring your children, whom you said would become plunder, into the land you have rejected—and they will enjoy it.

¹⁵But Jeshurun grew fat and kicked—becoming fat, bloated, and gorged. He abandoned the God who made him and scorned the Rock of his salvation.

⁵All these cities were fortified with high walls and gates and bars, and there were many more unwalled villages.

³⁵For even while they were in their kingdom, with the abundant goodness that You had given them, and in the spacious and fertile land that You had set before them, they would not serve You or turn from their wicked ways.

⁶⁶On the fifteenth day Solomon sent the people away. So they blessed the king and went home, joyful and glad in heart for all the good things that the Lord had done for His servant David and for His people Israel.

¹³He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,

⁵Afterward, the people of Israel will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to His goodness in the last days.

⁹You have done more evil than all who came before you. You have proceeded to make for yourself other gods and molten images to provoke Me, and you have flung Me behind your back.

¹¹And the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals.

¹²Thus they forsook the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed after various gods of the peoples around them. They bowed down to them and provoked the Lord to anger,

¹⁸Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

⁵²Which of the prophets did your fathers fail to persecute? They even killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One. And now you are His betrayers and murderers—

¹⁰“I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hosts,” he replied, “but the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I am the only one left, and they are seeking my life as well.”

⁴for when Jezebel had slaughtered the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them, fifty men per cave, providing them with food and water.)

⁴¹He delivered them into the hand of the nations, and those who hated them ruled over them.

⁴²Their enemies oppressed them and subdued them under their hand.

²⁷and since the Lord had said that He would not blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, He saved them by the hand of Jeroboam son of Jehoash.

¹⁰and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us through His servants the prophets.

¹¹All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.

⁵So the Lord gave Israel a deliverer, and they escaped the power of the Arameans. Then the people of Israel lived in their own homes as they had before.

¹⁸Whenever the Lord raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning under those who oppressed them and afflicted them.

⁶Israel was greatly impoverished by Midian, and the Israelites cried out to the Lord.

⁷Now when the Israelites cried out to the Lord because of Midian,

³¹So may all Your enemies perish, O Lord! But may those who love You shine like the sun at its brightest.” And the land had rest for forty years.

³³When Your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against You, and they return to You and confess Your name, praying and pleading with You in this temple,

³⁴then may You hear from heaven and forgive the sin of Your people Israel. May You restore them to the land You gave to their fathers.

³⁹be heard by You from heaven, Your dwelling place. And may You forgive and act, and repay each man according to all his ways, since You know his heart—for You alone know the hearts of all men—

¹After Ehud died, the Israelites again did evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹¹So the land had rest for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died.

¹²Once again the Israelites did evil in the sight of the Lord. So He gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord.

³⁰So Moab was subdued under the hand of Israel that day, and the land had rest for eighty years.

¹⁶But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments.

⁵Keep My statutes and My judgments, for the man who does these things will live by them. I am the Lord.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against You; they flung Your law behind their backs. They killed Your prophets, who had admonished them to return to You. They committed terrible blasphemies.

¹⁰You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his officials, and all the people of his land, for You knew they had acted with arrogance against our fathers. You made a name for Yourself that endures to this day.

⁶But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁷Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

²Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to reside there.’

⁴Or do you disregard the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?

¹⁵Again and again the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to His people through His messengers because He had compassion on them and on His dwelling place.

¹⁶But they mocked the messengers of God, despising His words and scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against His people was stirred up beyond remedy.

¹⁰But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit. So He turned and became their enemy, and He Himself fought against them.

²⁴Who gave Jacob up for spoil, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned? They were unwilling to walk in His ways, and they would not obey His law.

⁵¹You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

¹³Yet through all His prophets and seers, the Lord warned Israel and Judah, saying, “Turn from your wicked ways and keep My commandments and statutes, according to the entire Law that I commanded your fathers and delivered to you through My servants the prophets.”

¹⁴But they would not listen, and they stiffened their necks like their fathers, who did not believe the Lord their God.

²²Because of the loving devotion of the Lord we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail.

⁸The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion.

⁹He will not always accuse us, nor harbor His anger forever.

¹⁷They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them.

²⁷For this is what the Lord says: “The whole land will be desolate, but I will not finish its destruction.

⁶Then the Lord passed in front of Moses and called out: “The Lord, the Lord God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

⁷maintaining loving devotion to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. Yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished; He will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”

¹⁸“Yet even in those days,” declares the Lord, “I will not make a full end of you.

⁹Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion for a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

⁵Then I said: “O Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps His covenant of loving devotion with those who love Him and keep His commandments,

⁴And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,

⁸O Lord, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.

¹⁸Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance—who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion?

¹⁹He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea.

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

⁶We have sinned like our fathers; we have done wrong and acted wickedly.

⁵we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.

⁶We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.

²⁵Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?”

²³For God need not examine a man further or have him approach for judgment.

¹³⁷Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments.

¹⁸The Lord is righteous, yet I rebelled against His command. Listen, all you people; look upon my suffering. My young men and maidens have gone into captivity.

¹⁹I will do this because they have not listened to My words, declares the Lord, which I sent to them again and again through My servants the prophets. And neither have you exiles listened, declares the Lord.”

¹³Yet through all His prophets and seers, the Lord warned Israel and Judah, saying, “Turn from your wicked ways and keep My commandments and statutes, according to the entire Law that I commanded your fathers and delivered to you through My servants the prophets.”

²¹And when many troubles and afflictions have come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants. For I know their inclination, even before I bring them into the land that I swore to give them.”

¹⁵They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and became worthless themselves, going after the surrounding nations that the Lord had commanded them not to imitate.

³⁰You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.

⁴⁷Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and gladness of heart in all your abundance,

¹²The Lord alone led him, and no foreign god was with him.

¹³He made him ride on the heights of the land and fed him the produce of the field. He nourished him with honey from the rock and oil from the flinty crag,

¹⁹And when the people ask, ‘For what offense has the Lord our God done all these things to us?’ You are to tell them, ‘Just as you have forsaken Me and served foreign gods in your land, so will you serve foreigners in a land that is not your own.’”

⁷For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and fountains and springs that flow through the valleys and hills;

⁸a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey;

²¹And when many troubles and afflictions have come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants. For I know their inclination, even before I bring them into the land that I swore to give them.”

²⁵They captured fortified cities and fertile land and took houses full of all goods, wells already dug, vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled; they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.

⁹Though we are slaves, our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but He has extended to us grace in the sight of the kings of Persia, giving us new life to rebuild the house of our God and repair its ruins, and giving us a wall of protection in Judah and Jerusalem.

⁴⁸you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

⁸Nevertheless, they will become his servants, so that they may learn the difference between serving Me and serving the kings of other lands.”

³³A people you do not know will eat the produce of your land and of all your toil. All your days you will be oppressed and crushed.

⁴⁸you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you in famine, thirst, nakedness, and destitution. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you.

²⁴And be advised that you have no authority to impose tribute, duty, or toll on any of the priests, Levites, singers, doorkeepers, temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.

³⁹You will plant and cultivate vineyards, but will neither drink the wine nor gather the grapes, because worms will eat them.

⁸and said, “We have done our best to buy back our Jewish brothers who were sold to foreigners, but now you are selling your own brothers, that they may be sold back to us!” But they remained silent, for they could find nothing to say.

⁵¹They will eat the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your land until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain or new wine or oil, no calves of your herds or lambs of your flocks, until they have caused you to perish.

¹Now these were the ones who sealed the document: Nehemiah the governor, son of Hacaliah, and also Zedekiah,

²⁹hereby join with their noble brothers and commit themselves with a sworn oath to follow the Law of God given through His servant Moses and to obey carefully all the commandments, ordinances, and statutes of the Lord our Lord.

³¹So the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of the covenant that were written in this book.

³So now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all the foreign wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the command of our God. Let it be done according to the Law.

³So the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the Lord to follow the Lord and to keep His commandments, decrees, and statutes with all his heart and all his soul, and to carry out the words of the covenant that were written in this book. And all the people entered into the covenant.

¹⁰Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that His fierce anger will turn away from us.