Nehemiah 9:1-23

1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this same month, Bnei-Yisrael gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and putting dust on their heads.

2The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, standing and confessing their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

3They stood in their place and read in the scroll of the Torah of Adonai their God for a quarter of the day; and for another quarter they were confessing and prostrating themselves before Adonai their God.

4Then the Levites —Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani —stood on the platform and cried out with a loud voice to Adonai their God.

5The Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said: “Stand up! Bless Adonai your God, from everlasting to everlasting! May Your glorious Name be blessed; may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.

6You alone are Adonai.You made the heavens, even the highest heaven with all its array, the earth and everything on it, the seas and everything in them. You give life to them all, and the multitudes of heaven worship You.

7“You are Adonai, the God who chose Abram, brought him from Ur of the Chaldeans and gave him the name Abraham.

8You found his heart faithful before You and made the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite and the Girgashite to his seed. You have fulfilled Your words, for You are righteous.

9“You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard their cry by the Sea of Reeds.

10You gave signs and wonders against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all the people of his land, for You knew how insolently they treated them. You made a name for Yourself which remains to this day.

11You divided the sea before them, so that they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land! But their pursuers You threw into the depths like a stone into mighty waters.

12You led them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illuminate for them the way they were to go.

13“You descended on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You gave them just judgments, reliable laws, and good statutes and mitzvot.

14You made known to them Your holy Shabbat and ordained for them mitzvot, statutes and Torah by the hand of Your servant Moses.

15You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger, and brought them water from the rock for their thirst. You told them to go in to possess the land that You had sworn to give them.

16“But they, our ancestors, became arrogant. They stiffened their neck and did not obey Your mitzvot.

17They refused to obey and did not remember Your wonders that You did among them. Instead, they became stiff-necked and in their rebellion, appointed a leader in order to return to their bondage. But You are a God of forgiveness, merciful and compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. Therefore You did not abandon them,

18even when they made a cast image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your god who brought you up from Egypt!’ or when they committed great blasphemies.

19“Yet in Your great compassion You did not abandon them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud by day did not depart from above them, guiding them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, illuminating the way they should go.

20You also gave Your good Ruach to teach them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouth and You gave them water for their thirst.

21For forty years You sustained them in the desert: they lacked nothing, their garments did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

22“You gave them kingdoms and peoples and You allotted them their boundaries of the land. They possessed the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan.

23You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven, and You brought them into the land that You told their ancestors to enter and inherit.