The People of Israel Confess Their Sin
1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of
1this month the people of Israel were assembled
2with fasting
3and in sackcloth,
4and with earth on their heads.
2
5And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
3
6And they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.
4
On the stairs of the Levites stood
7Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God.
5
Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, "Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting.
8Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.
6
9"You are the LORD, you alone.
10You have made heaven,
11the heaven of heavens,
12with all their host,
13the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them;
14and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
7
You are the LORD, the God
15who chose Abram and brought him out of
16Ur of the Chaldeans
17and gave him the name Abraham.
8
18You found his heart faithful before you,
19and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring
20the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite.
21And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.
9
22"And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard
23their cry at the Red Sea,
10
24and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that
25they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And
26you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day.
11
27And you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths,
28as a stone into mighty waters.
12
By
29a pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go.
13
30You came down on Mount Sinai
31and spoke with them from heaven and gave them
32right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments,
14
33and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant.
15
34You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and
35brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you
36told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.