The People Confess Their Sins

1And in the twenty and fourth day to this month, the sons of Israel were gathered together with fasting and with sackclothes, and earth upon them. 2And the seed of Israel will be separated from all the sons of the stranger, and they will stand and confess over their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers. 3And they will rise up upon their standing and read in the book of the law of Jehovah their God, the fourth of the day; and a fourth confessing and worshiping to Jehovah their God. 4And there will rise up upon the ascent of the Levites, Joshua and the sons of Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bani, Sherebiah, Bani, Chenani; and they will cry with a great voice to Jehovah their God.

5And the Levites, Joshua and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, Pethahiah, will say, Rise up, praise Jehovah your God from forever even to forever: and they shall praise the name of thy glory, exalting over all blessing and praise.

6Thou thyself, O Jehovah, thou alone, didst make the heavens, the heavens of heavens, with all their army, the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them, and thou makest alive all of them: and the army of the heavens worshiping to thee.

7Thou thyself Jehovah the God who chose in Abram, and thou broughtest him from Ur of the Chaldees, and didst set his name Abraham.

8And thou didst find his heart faithful before thee, and thou didst cut out a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perezzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give to his seed: and thou wilt set up thy words, for thou art just:

9And thou wilt see the humbling of our fathers in Egypt, and thou heardest their cry upon the sea of sedge:

10And thou wilt give signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they acted proudly against them. And thou wilt make to thee a name as this day.

11And thou didst cleave asunder the sea before them, and they will pass over in the midst of the sea upon dry land; and those pursuing them thou didst cast into the depths as a stone into the strong waters.

12And in a pillar of cloud thou didst guide them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, to enlighten the way to them that they shall go in it.

13And upon mount Sinai thou camest down, and speaking with them from the heavens, and thou wilt give to them right judgments, and laws of truth, good laws and commands.

14And thou didst make known to them thy holy Sabbath, and commands, and ordinances, and law; thou didst charge to them by the hand of Moses thy servant:

15And bread from the heavens thou gavest to them for their hunger, and water from the rock thou broughtest forth to them for their thirst; and thou wilt say to them to go in and to inherit the land which thou didst lift up thy hand to give to them.

16And they and our fathers acted proudly, and they will harden their neck, and will not hear to thy commands,

17And they will refuse to hear, and they will not remember thy wonders which thou didst with them; and they will harden their necks, and they will give a head to turn back to their servitude in their perverseness: and thou a God of forgivenesses, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger and great of mercy, and thou didst not forsake them.

18Also when they made to them a molten calf, and they will say, This thy God which brought thee up from Egypt; and they will make great reproaches;

19And thou in thy many compassions forsookest them not in the desert: not removing the pillar of cloud from above them in the day to guide them in the way; and the pillar of fire in the night, to enlighten to them, and the way that they shall go in it.

20And thy good spirit thou gavest to instruct them, and thy manna thou didst not withhold from their mouth, and water gavest thou to them for their thirst.

21And forty years thou didst nourish them in the desert; they wanted not; their garments fell not away, and their feet swelled not.

22And thou wilt give to them kingdoms and nations, and thou wilt divide them to the extremity: and they will inherit the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan.

23And their sons thou didst multiply as the stars of the heavens, and thou wilt bring them to the land which thou saidst to their fathers to come in to possess.

24And their sons will come in and possess the land, and thou wilt subdue before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and thou wilt give them into their hand, and all their kings, and the nations of the land, to do them according to their will.

25And they will take inaccessible cities, and a fat land, and they will inherit houses full of all good, and wells hewed out, vineyards and olive trees, and the tree of food for abundance: and they will eat and be filled, and be fat, and will live delicately in thy great goodness.

26And they will be perverse, and they will rebel against thee, and they will cast thy law behind their back, and they killed thy prophets who testified against them to turn them back to thee, and they will make great reproaches.

27And thou wilt give them into the hand of their adversaries, and they will press upon them: and in the time of their straits they will cry to thee, and thou wilt hear from the heavens; and according to thy many compassion thou wilt give to them saviours, and they will save them from the hand of their adversaries.

28And when rest to them they will turn back to do evil before thee: and thou wilt leave them in the hand of their enemies, and they will come down upon them: and they will turn back and cry to thee, and thou from the heavens wilt hear, and wilt deliver them according to thy compassion, many times.

29And thou wilt testify against them to turn them back to thy law: and they acted proudly and heard not to thy commands, and in thy judgments they sinned in them; (which a man shall do and he lived in them) and they will give a shoulder turning aside, and they hardened their neck and heard not.

30And thou wilt protract over them many years, and thou wilt testify against them by thy spirit in the hand of thy prophets: and they gave not ear, and thou wilt give them into the hand of the people of the lands.

31And in thy many compassions thou madest them not a finishing, and thou didst not forsake them; for thou a God merciful and compassionate.

32And now our God, the great the mighty, and the terrible God, watching the covenant and the mercy, it shall not be little before thee all the distress which found us, to our kings, to our chiefs, to our priests, and to our prophets, and to our fathers, and to all thy people from the days of the kings of Assur even to this day.

33And thou art just for all brought upon us; for thou didst the truth and we were evil:

34And our kings, our chiefs, our priests and our fathers, they did not thy law, and they attended not to thy commands and thy testimonies which thou didst testify against them.

35And they in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness which thou gavest to them, and in the broad and fat land which thou gavest before them, served not thee, and turned not back from their evil works.

36Behold, we this day are servants, and the land which thou gavest to our fathers to eat its fruit and its goodness, behold, we are servants upon it:

37And its produce being much for the kings whom thou gavest over us in our sins: and ruling over our bodies and upon our cattle according to their will, and we in great straits.

38And for all this we cut out faithfulness, and write; and upon the sealing, our chiefs, our Levites, and our priests.