Nehemiah 9:1-21 ▼

1 NOW on the twenty-fourth day of this month, the children of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloth and ashes upon them.

2 And the descendants of Israel separated themselves from all the Gentiles, and stood and confessed their sins and the sins of their fathers.

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

4 Then the chiefs over the Levites, Joshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Heshabiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, stood up and prayed with a loud voice before the LORD their God.

5 Then the Levites, Joshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Heshabiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever, and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all creations and praises.

6 Thou alone art the LORD; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the waters and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worships thee.

7 Thou art the LORD, the God who didst choose Abram and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and didst change his name to Abraham;

8 And didst find his heart pure before thee, and didst make a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it to his descendants, and thou hast performed thy words with him, for thou art righteous;

9 And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and hear their cry by the Red Sea;

10 And didst show signs and wonders upon Pharaoh and upon all his servants and on all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt wrongly with thy people. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day.

11 And thou didst open a passage in the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou didst throw into the depths of the sea, as a stone that sinks in the mighty waters.

12 Moreover thou hast led them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way in which they should go.

13 Thou didst come down also upon mount Sinai and speak with them from heaven, and didst give them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments;

14 And thou didst make known to them thy holy sabbath and commandments and statutes and laws which thou commandedst by the hand of Moses thy servant;

15 And didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promised them that they should go in to possess the land which thy hand hadst sworn to give them.

16 But they and their fathers dealt wickedly and were stubborn and did not give ear to thy commandments,

17 And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them; but turned their hearts to their evil works; yet thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and ready to hear petitions, and didst not forsake them.

18 Yea, when they had made for themselves a molten calf, and said, This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and they wrought great wickedness;

19 Yet thou in thy manifold mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day, to lead them on their journey; neither the pillar of fire by night, to lighten the way by which they should go.

20 Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and didst not withhold manna from their mouths, and gavest them water for their thirst.

21 Yea, for forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out, and their shoes had no holes in them.