Nehemiah 9:16-37

Brenton^{(i) 16} But they and our fathers behaved proudly, and hardened their neck, and did not hearken to thy commandments, ¹⁷ and refused to listen, and remembered not thy wonders which thou wroughtest with them; and they hardened their neck, and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt: but thou, O God, art merciful and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and thou didst not forsake them. ¹⁸ And still farther they even made to themselves a molten calf, and said, These are the gods that brought us up out of Egypt: and they wrought great provocations. ¹⁹ Yet thou in thy great compassions didst not forsake them in the wilderness: thou didst not turn away from them the pillar of the cloud by day, to guide them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, to enlighten for them the way wherein they should walk. ²⁰ And thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them, and thou didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water in their thirst. ²¹ And thou didst sustain them forty years in the wilderness; thou didst not allow anything to fail them: their garments did not wax old, and their feet were not bruised. ²² Moreover, thou gavest them kingdoms, and didst divide nations to them: and they inherited the land of Seon king of Esebon, and the land of Og king of Basan. ²³ And thou didst multiply their children as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land of which thou spokest to their fathers; ²⁴ And they inherited it: and thou didst destroy from before them the dwellers in the land of the Chananites, and thou gavest into their hands them and their kings, and the nations of the land, to do unto them as it pleased them. ²⁵ And they took lofty cities, and inherited houses full of all good things, wells dug, vineyards, and oliveyards, and every fruit tree in abundance: so they ate, and were filled, and grew fat, and rioted in thy great goodness. ²⁶ But they turned, and revolted from thee, and cast thy law behind their backs; and they slew thy prophets, who testified against them to turn them back to thee, and they wrought great provocations. ²⁷ Then thou gavest them into the hand of them that afflicted them, and they did afflict them: and they cried to thee in the time of their affliction, and thou didst hear them from thy heaven, and in thy great compassions gavest them deliverers, and didst save them from the hand of them that afflicted them. ²⁸ But when they rested, they did evil again before thee: so thou leftest them in the hands of their enemies, and they ruled over them: and they cried again to thee, and thou heardest them from heaven, and didst deliver them in thy great compassions. ²⁹ And thou didst testify against them, to bring them back to thy law: but they hearkened not, but sinned against thy commandments and thy judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them; and they turned their back, and hardened their neck, and heard not. ³⁰ Yet thou didst bear long with them many years, and didst testify to them by thy Spirit by the hand of thy prophets: but they hearkened not; so thou gavest them into the hand of the nations of the land. ³¹ But thou in thy many mercies didst not appoint them to destruction, and didst not forsake them; for thou art strong, and merciful, and pitiful. ³² And now, O our God, the powerful, the great, the mighty, and the terrible, keeping thy covenant and thy mercy, let not all the trouble seem little in thy sight which has come upon us, and our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, and our fathers, and upon all thy people, from the days of the kings of Assur even to this day. ³³ But thou art righteous in all the things that come upon us; for thou hast wrought faithfully, but we have greatly sinned. ³⁴ And our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our fathers, have not performed thy law, and have not given heed to thy commandments, and have not kept thy testimonies which thou didst testify to them. ³⁵ And they did not serve thee in thy kingdom, and in thy great goodness which thou gavest to them, and in the large and fat land which thou didst furnish before them, and they turned not from their evil devices. ³⁶ Behold, we are servants this day, and as for the land which thou gavest to our fathers to eat the fruit of it and the good things of it, behold, we are servants upon it: ³⁷ and its produce is abundant for the kings whom thou didst appoint over us because of our sins; and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, as it pleases them, and we are in great affliction.