Nehemiah 9:12-23

MSB(i) 12 You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they should travel. 13 You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them just ordinances, true laws, and good statutes and commandments. 14 You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments and statutes and laws through Your servant Moses. 15 In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven; in their thirst You brought them water from the rock. You told them to go in and possess the land which You had sworn to give them. 16 But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked and did not obey Your commandments. 17 They refused to listen and failed to remember the wonders You performed among them. They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader to return them to their bondage in Egypt. But You are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in loving devotion, and You did not forsake them. 18 Even when they cast for themselves an image of a calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and when they committed terrible blasphemies, 19 You in Your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. By day the pillar of cloud never turned away from guiding them on their path; and by the night the pillar of fire illuminated the way they should go. 20 You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths, and You gave them water for their thirst. 21 For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell. 22 You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner of the land. So they took the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and of Og king of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven and brought them to the land You had told their fathers to enter and possess.