1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel came together, taking no food and putting sackcloth and dust on their bodies. 2The seed of Israel made themselves separate from all the men of other nations. They publicly requested forgiveness for their sins and the wrongdoing of their fathers. 3For a fourth part of the day, upright in their places, they read from the book of the Law of their God. For a fourth part of the day they requested forgiveness and worshipped Jehovah their God. 4Then Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani took their places on the steps of the Levites and cried in a loud voice to Jehovah their God. 5Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said: »Get up and give praise to Jehovah your God forever and ever. Praise your great name that is lifted up high over all, blessing and praise. 6»You are Jehovah, even you only! You made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their armies, the earth and all things in it, the seas and everything in them. You keep them from destruction and the armies of heaven are your worshippers. 7»You are Jehovah, the true God, who took Abram and made him yours, guiding him from Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham; 8»You saw that his heart was true to you, and made an agreement with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite and the Girgashite, even to give it to his seed, and you have done what you said; for righteousness is yours. 9»You saw the trouble of our fathers in Egypt, and their cry came to your ears by the Red Sea. 10»You did signs and wonders on Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land. You saw how cruel they were to them. So you made a name for yourself as it is today. 11»You parted the sea before them, so that they went through the sea on dry land; and those who went after them went down into the deep, like a stone into great waters. 12»And you went before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light on the way they were to go. 13»You came down on Mount Sinai, and your voice came to them from heaven, giving them right decisions and true laws, good rules and orders. 14»They received word of your holy Sabbath from you. You gave them orders and rules and a law, by the hand of Moses your servant. 15»They received bread from heaven when they were in need, and you made water come out of the rock for their drink, and gave them orders to go in and take for their heritage the land that your hand give them. 16»But they and our fathers, in their pride, made their necks stiff, and paid no attention to your orders. 17»They would not obey you and gave no thought to the wonders you did among them. They became stubborn and turning away from you. They appointed a leader over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt. However, you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up. 18»Even when they made for themselves a bull out of metal, and said: ‘This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry.’ 19»Even then, in your great mercy, you did not give them up in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud still went before them by day, guiding them on their way, and the pillar of fire by night, to give them light, and make clear the way they were to go. 20»You gave your good Spirit to be their teacher. You did not hold back your manna from their mouths. You gave them water when they had need of it. 21»Truly, for forty years you were their support in the wilderness. They needed nothing. Their clothing did not get old or their feet become tired. 22»You gave them kingdoms and peoples, making distribution to them in every part of the land. They took for their heritage the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan. 23»You made their children as great in number as the stars of heaven. You took them into the land, of which you had said to their fathers that they were to go in and take it for themselves. 24»So the children went in and took the land. You overcame before them the people of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them up into their hands, with their kings and the people of the land, so that they might do with them whatever it was their pleasure to do. 25»And they took walled towns and a fat land. They became the owners of houses full of all good things, water-holes cut in the rock, vine-gardens and olive-gardens and a wealth of fruit-trees. They had food enough and became fat, and had joy in the good you gave them. 26»But they were hard-hearted, and went against your authority. They turned their backs on your law, and murdered your prophets. These prophets gave witness against them with the purpose of turning them back again to you. They did much to make you angry. 27»So you gave them up into the hands of their enemies who were cruel to them. In the time of their trouble, when they prayed to you, you listened to them from heaven. In your great mercy you gave them saviors, who made them free from the hands of their enemies. 28»When they had rest, they did evil again before you: so you gave them into the hands of their enemies who ruled over them. When they came back and prayed to you, you listened to them from heaven; again and again, in your mercy, you gave them salvation. 29»You admonished them so that you might make them come back again to your law. Their hearts were lifted up, and they paid no attention to your orders. They went against your life giving decisions and turned their backs on you. They were stubborn and did not listen. 30»You put up with them for years. You admonished them by your Spirit through your prophets. Still they did not listen. So you gave them up into the hands of the peoples of the lands. 31»Even then, in your great mercy, you did not put an end to them completely, or give them up; for you are a God of grace loving-kindness and mercy. 32»Now, our God, the great, the strong, the God who is to be respected, who keeps faith and mercy, do not let his trouble seem small to you. It has come on us, and on our kings and our rulers and on our priests and our prophets and our fathers and on all your people from the time of the kings of Assyria till this day. 33»You have been in the right in everything that happened to us. You have been true to us, but we have done evil! 34»Our kings, our rulers, our priests, and our fathers have not obeyed your Law or given attention to your orders and your witness, with which you gave witness against them. 35»They have not been your servants in their kingdom! In all the good things you gave them, and in the great and fat land you gave them they have not turned away from their evil doing. 36»Today, we are servants! As for the land you gave to our fathers, so that the produce of it and the good might be theirs, see, we are servants in it! 37»And it gives much increase to the kings whom you have put over us because of our sins. They have power over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great trouble. 38»And because of all this we are making an agreement in good faith, and putting it in writing. Our rulers, our Levites, and our priests are putting their names to it.«