Remembering the LORD ’s mighty deeds

¹On the twenty-fourth day of this month, the people of Israel were assembled. They fasted, wore funeral clothing, and had dirt on their heads.[#9.1 Or sackcloth; #9.1 Or on them]

²After the Israelites separated themselves from all of the foreigners, they stood to confess their sins and the terrible behavior of their ancestors.

³They stood in their place and read the Instruction scroll from the LORD their God for a quarter of the day. For another quarter of the day, they confessed and worshipped the LORD their God.

⁴On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani. They cried out with a loud voice to the LORD their God.

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 bless your glorious name,

⁶You alone are the LORD .

⁷LORD God, you are the one who chose Abram.

You promised to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites,

And you have kept your promise because you are righteous.

⁹You saw the affliction of our ancestors in Egypt

¹⁰You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,

You knew that they had acted arrogantly against our ancestors.

¹¹You divided the sea before them so that they went through it on dry land.

¹²With a pillar of cloud you led them by day

¹³You came down upon Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven.

¹⁵When they were hungry, you gave them bread from heaven;

You told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

¹⁶But our ancestors acted arrogantly.

But you are a God ready to forgive, merciful and compassionate,

¹⁸Even when they had cast an image of a calf for themselves,

¹⁹you, in your great mercy, didn’t abandon them in the wilderness.

²⁰You gave your good spirit to teach them.

²¹You kept them alive for forty years—

²²You gave them kingdoms and peoples,

²³You multiplied their descendants as the stars of heaven.

²⁴So the descendants went in and possessed the land.

²⁵They captured fortified cities and productive land,

They ate until they were satisfied and grew fat,

²⁶But they were disobedient, rebelled against you,

They killed your prophets who had warned them so that they might return to you.

²⁷Therefore, you handed them over to the power of their enemies who made them suffer.

But when they cried out to you in their suffering,

Because you are merciful,

²⁸But after they had rest from this, they again started doing evil against you.

Yet when they turned and cried to you,

but they acted arrogantly and didn’t obey your commands.

³⁰You were patient with them for many years

But they wouldn’t listen,

³¹In your great mercy, however, you didn’t make an end of them.

³²Now, our God, great and mighty and awesome God,

Don’t treat lightly all of the hardship that has come upon us,

³³You have been just in all that has happened to us;

³⁴Our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors haven’t kept your Instruction.

³⁵Even in their own kingdom, surrounded by the great goodness that you gave to them,

³⁶So now today we are slaves,

³⁷Its produce profits the kings whom you have placed over us because of our sins.

Commitment to follow the Instruction

³⁸Because of all this, we are making a firm agreement in writing, with the names of our officials, our Levites, and our priests on the seal.[#9.38 10:1 in Heb; #9.38 refers to great distress in 9:37.]