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¹ And in the twenty and fourth day of the this month the sons of Israel gathered in fasting, and in sackcloth, and with dust on them.

² And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all the sons of a foreigner. Then they stood, and they confessed their sins and the evil actions of their fathers.

³ And they stood up in their places, and for a fourth of the day they read from the scroll of the law of Yahweh their God. And for another fourth they confessed and bowed down to Yahweh their God.

⁴ And the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani, stood up on the ascent and they cried out with a loud voice to Yahweh their God.

⁵ And the Levites— Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah— said, “Stand up! Praise Yahweh your God from age unto age. And may they bless the name of your glory, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

⁶ You are he, Yahweh, you alone. You yourself made the heavens, the heaven of the heavens, and all their host; the earth, and all which is on her; the seas, and all which is in them. And you make them all alive, and to you the host of heaven prostrate themselves in worship.

⁷ You are he, Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, and brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, and you gave him his name Abraham.

⁸ And you found his heart was faithful before your face, and you cut with him the covenant— to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites— to give to his seed. And You have carried out your words because you are righteous.

⁹ And you saw the humiliation of our fathers in Egypt and you heard their cry by the Sea of Reeds.

¹⁰ And you gave signs and miracles against Pharaoh, and against all his servants, and against all the people of his land, because you knew that they were arrogant against them. And you made a name for yourself as it is this day.

¹¹ And you divided the sea before their face, and they passed in the midst of the sea on the dry land; and you threw their pursuers into the depths, like a stone into mighty waters.

¹² And you guided them with a pillar of cloud by day, and with a pillar of fire by night, to illuminate for them the way in which they should go.

¹³ And on Mount Sinai you came down and you spoke with them from heaven and you gave to them righteous decrees and true laws, statutes and good commandments.

¹⁴ And you revealed to them your holy Sabbath, and you taught to them commandments and statutes and a law through the hand of Moses your servant.

¹⁵ And you gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and you brought forth to them water from a rock for their thirst, and you said to them to go in to possess the land which you raised your hand to give to them.

¹⁶ And they and our fathers were arrogant, and they stiffened their necks, and did not listen to your commandments.

¹⁷ And they refused to listen, and they did not consider your marvelous things which you did among them, and they stiffened their necks, and they appointed a leader in their rebellion, to return to their slavery. But you are a God of pardons, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, and with much steadfast love. And you did not abandon them.

¹⁸ Even when they made for themselves a calf out of molten metal and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up from Egypt,’ and committed great blasphemies,

¹⁹ even then, you, in your compassion, did not abandon the multitudes in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud he did not remove from above them by day, to lead them on the way, neither the pillar of fire by night to illuminate for them the way in which they should go.

²⁰ And you gave your good Spirit to enlighten them, and you did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave to them water for their thirst.

²¹ Now you sustained them for forty years in the wilderness; they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

²² And You gave to them kingdoms and peoples, and you portioned out every corner. And they took possession of the land of Sihon, which is the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.

²³ And you multiplied their sons like the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you told their fathers to go in and possess.

²⁴ And the sons went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before their faces the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites. And you gave them into their hands, and their kings, and the peoples of the land, to do with them as they pleased.

²⁵ And they captured the fortified cities and a productive land, and they possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns already- dug, vineyards and olive orchards, and food trees in abundance. And they ate and they were satisfied and they grew fat and they luxuriated in your great goodness.

²⁶ And they became defiant and they rebelled against you, and they threw your law behind their body. And they killed your prophets, who testified to them to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies.

²⁷ And you gave them into the hand of their enemies, and they made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering, they cried out to you, and you heard them from heaven, and because of your many mercies you sent to them saviors, and they saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

²⁸ And after rest came to them, they went back to doing evil before your face, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, and they ruled over them. Then they turned back and they cried out to you, and you heard from heaven, and you rescued them many times because of your compassion.

²⁹ And you testified to them to turn them back to your law. But they, being arrogant, did not listen to your commands. And against your decrees— those which a man does them and he lives— they sinned against them. And they gave the stubborn shoulder and they stiffened their neck and they did not listen.

³⁰ And you were patient with them for many years, and you testified to them with your spirit by the hand of your prophets, but they did not listen. So you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the land.

³¹ And in your many compassions you did not make an end of them, and you did not forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

³² And now, our God— the great, mighty, and feared God, keeper of the covenant and steadfast love— do not let it seem as nothing before your face all the difficulty that has happened to us, to our kings, to our princes, and to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers, and to all your people from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day.

³³ And you are just in everything that has happened to us, for you have dealt faithfully, but we— we have acted wickedly.

³⁴ And our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers— they have not done your law, nor did they pay attention to your commandments or your decrees by which you warned them.

³⁵ And they— in their own kingdom, and in your great goodness which you gave to them, and in the wide and productive land which you set before their face— they did not serve you, and they did not turn away from their evil practices.

³⁶ Look! Today we are servants. And in the land which you gave to our fathers to eat her fruit and her goodness— look! we are servants in her!

³⁷ And her great income goes to the kings whom you have set over us in our sins. And they reign over our bodies, and over our livestock, as they please. And we are in great distress.

³⁸ And in all of this, we are cutting a faithful covenant, and writing on the sealed document: our princes, our Levites, and our priests.”

The Book of Nehemiah