Nehemiah 9:1-21 ▼

1 Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth on them.

2 The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.

3 They stood up in their place, and read in the scroll of the law of the LORD their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed, and worshiped the LORD their God.

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

5 Then the Levites, Jeshua, and 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, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

6 You are the LORD, even you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and you preserve them all. The army of heaven worships you.

7 You are the LORD, the God who chose Abram, and brought him out of Ur Kasdim, and gave him the name of Abraham,

8 and found his heart faithful before you, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hethite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his descendants, and have performed your words; for you are righteous.

9 |You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Sea at the End,

10 and showed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, and against all his servants, and against all the people of his land; for you knew that they dealt proudly against them, and made a name for yourself, as it is this day.

11 You divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters.

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

13 |You came down also on Mount Sinai, and spoke with them from heaven, and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments,

14 and made known to them your holy Sabbath, and commanded them commandments, and statutes, and a law, by Moses your servant,

15 and gave them bread from the sky for their hunger, and brought forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and commanded them that they should go in to possess the land which you had sworn to give them.

16 |But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their neck, did not listen to your commandments,

17 and refused to obey, neither were they mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and did not forsake them.

18 Yes, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, 'This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,' and had committed awful blasphemies;

19 yet you in your manifold mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness: the pillar of cloud did not depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go.

20 You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst.

21 |Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes did not grow old, and their feet did not swell.