The People Confess Their Sins

1In the foure and twentieth day of this moneth the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackecloth, and earth vpon them. 2(And they that were of the seede of Israel were separated from all the strangers) and they stoode and confessed their sinnes and the iniquities of their fathers. 3And they stood vp in their place and read in the booke of the Lawe of the Lord their GOD foure times on the day, and they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God foure times. 4Then stoode vp vpon the staires of the Leuites Ieshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cryed with a loud voyce vnto the Lord their God.

5And the Leuites said, euen Ieshua and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodiiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, Stande vp, and praise the Lorde your God for euer, and euer, and let them praise thy glorious Name, O God, which excelleth aboue all thankesgiuing and praise.

6Thou art Lorde alone: thou hast made heauen, and the heauen of all heauens, with all their hoste, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, & al that are in them, & thou preseruest them all, and the host of the heauen worshippeth thee.

7Thou art, O Lord, the God, that hast chosen Abram, and broughtest him out of Vr in Caldea, and madest his name Abraham,

8And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a couenant with him, to giue vnto his seede the lande of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, and Perizzites, and Iebusites, and Girgashites, and hast performed thy wordes, because thou art iust.

9Thou hast also considered the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the red Sea,

10And shewed tokens & wonders vpon Pharaoh, and on all his seruants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudely against them: therefore thou madest thee a Name, as appeareth this day.

11For thou didest breake vp the Sea before them, and they went through the middes of the Sea on dry lande: and those that pursued them, hast thou cast into the bottomes as a stone, in the mightie waters:

12And leddest them in the day with a pillar of a cloude, and in the night with a pillar of fire to giue them light in the way that they went.

13Thou camest downe also vpon mount Sinai, and spakest vnto them from heauen, and gauest them right iudgements, and true lawes, ordinances and good commandements,

14And declaredst vnto them thine holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, and ordinances, and lawes, by the hande of Moses thy seruant:

15And gauest them bread from heauen for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rocke for their thirst: and promisedst them that they shoulde goe in, and take possession of the land: for the which thou haddest lift vp thine hand for to giue them.

16But they and our fathers behaued them selues proudely, and hardened their neck, so that they hearkened not vnto thy commandements,

17But refused to obey, & would not remember thy marueilous works that thou haddest done for them, but hardened their neckes, and had in their heads to returne to their bondage by their rebellion: but thou, O God of mercies, gratious and full of compassion, of long suffring and of great mercie, yet forsookest them not.

18Moreouer, when they made them a molten calfe (and said, This is thy God that brought thee vp out of the land of Egypt) and committed great blasphemies,

19Yet thou for thy great mercies forsookest them not in the wildernesse: the pillar of the cloude departed not from them by day to leade them the way, neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way whereby they should goe.

20Thou gauest also thy good Spirite to instruct them, & withheldest not thy MAN from their mouth, & gauest them water for their thirst.

21Thou didest also feede them fourtie yeres in ye wildernes: they lacked nothing: their clothes waxed not old, and their feete swelled not.

22And thou gauest them kingdomes & people, and scatteredst them into corners: so they possessed the land of Sihon & the land of ye King of Heshbon, and the land of Og King of Bashan.

23And thou diddest multiplie their children, like the starres of the heauen, and broughtest them into the lande, whereof thou haddest spoken vnto their fathers, that they should goe, and possesse it.

24So the children went in, and possessed the lande, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the lande, euen the Canaanites, and gauest them into their handes, with their Kings and the people of the lande, that they might do with them what they would.

25And they tooke their strong cities and the fat lande, and possessed houses, full of all goods, cisternes digged out, vineyardes, and oliues, and trees for foode in abundance, and they did eate, and were filled, and became fat, and liued in pleasure through thy great goodnesse.

26Yet they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy Lawe behinde their backes, and slewe thy Prophets (which protested among them to turne them vnto thee) and committed great blasphemies.

27Therefore thou deliueredst them into the hande of their enemies that vexed them: yet in the time of their affliction, when they cryed vnto thee, thou heardest them from the heauen, & through thy great mercies thou gauest them sauiours, who saued them out of the hande of their aduersaries.

28But when they had rest, they returned to doe euill before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hande of their enemies, so that they had the dominion ouer them, yet when they conuerted and cryed vnto thee, thou heardest them from heauen, and deliueredst them according to thy great mercies many times,

29And protestedst among them that thou mightest bring them againe vnto thy Lawe: but they behaued them selues proudely, and hearkened not vnto thy commaundements, but sinned against thy iudgements ( which a man should doe and liue in them) and pulled away the shoulder, and were stiffenecked, and woulde not heare.

30Yet thou diddest forbeare them many yeeres, and protestedst among them by thy Spirite, euen by the hande of thy Prophets, but they woulde not heare: therefore gauest thou them into the hande of the people of the lands.

31Yet for thy great mercies thou hast not consumed them, neither forsaken them: for thou art a gracious and mercifull God.

32Nowe therefore our God, thou great God, mightie and terrible, that keepest couenant and mercie, let not all the affliction that hath come vnto vs, seeme a litle before thee, that is, to our Kings, to our princes, and to our Priests, and to our Prophets, and to our fathers, and to all thy people since the time of the Kings of Asshur vnto this day.

33Surely thou art iust in all that is come vpon vs: for thou hast dealt truly, but we haue done wickedly.

34And our kings and our princes, our Priests and our fathers haue not done thy Lawe, nor regarded thy commandements nor thy protestations, wherewith thou hast protested among them.

35And they haue not serued thee in their kingdome, and in thy great goodnesse that thou shewedst vnto them, & in the large and fat lande which thou diddest set before them, and haue not conuerted from their euill workes.

36Beholde, we are seruants this day, and the lande that thou gauest vnto our fathers, to eate the fruite thereof, and the goodnesse thereof, beholde, we are seruants therein.

37And it yeeldeth much fruit vnto the kings whom thou hast set ouer vs, because of our sinnes: and they haue dominion ouer our bodyes and ouer our cattell at their pleasure, and we are in great affliction.

38Nowe because of all this we make a sure couenant, and write it, and our princes, our Leuites and our Priestes seale vnto it.