¹In the first year of Darius son of Ahasuerus, from the seed of Media, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans,

²In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, discerned in the scrolls the number of the years of which the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the prophet, that seventy years would be completed for the ruins of Jerusalem.

³I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and pleas, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.

⁴And I prayed to Yahweh my God, and I confessed, and I said, I beg you, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps the covenant and the loyal love to those who love him and to those who keep his commands.

⁵We have sinned, and we have gone crooked, we have acted wickedly, and we have rebelled, turning aside from your commands and from your justice.

⁶And we have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our officials, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.

⁷To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, and to us the shame of faces, as on this day: to the men of Judah, to the dwellers of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, the near and the far, in all the lands where you have banished them, in their unfaithfulness which they committed against you.

⁸O Yahweh, to us belongs the shame of faces, to our kings, to our officials, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.

⁹To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him.

¹⁰And we did not listen to the voice of Yahweh our God, to walk in his instruction, which he set before us by the hand of his servants the prophets.

¹¹And all Israel have overstepped your instruction and turned aside, so as not to listen to your voice; therefore the curse and the oath written in the instruction of Moses the servant of God have poured out on us, for we have sinned against him.

¹²He made his word stand that he spoke against us and against our judges who judged us, by bringing on us a great evil, one that has not been done under all the skies, as it has been done in Jerusalem.

¹³As that which is wrote in the instruction of Moses, all this disaster came over us; and we have not entreated in the face of Yahweh our God, to return from our guilt and to act wisely in your stability.

¹⁴And Yahweh kept watch over the calamity and brought it upon us; for Yahweh our God is righteous in all his works that he has done, and we did not listen to his voice.

¹⁵And now, Lord our God, you who brought your people out from the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made a name for yourself, as at this day—we have sinned, we have acted wickedly.

¹⁶O Lord, according to all your righteousness, I pray, let your anger and your rage turn back from your city Jerusalem, the mountain of your holiness; for through our sins and the guilt of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a reproach to all around us.

¹⁷And now, our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas, and make your face shine on your sanctuary that lies desolate, for the sake of the Lord.

¹⁸Bend your ear, my God, and hear; open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name; for not on our righteousness do we let our pleas fall before your face, but on your many compassions.

¹⁹Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, pay attention and act! Do not delay, for your own sake, my God; for your name is called over your city and over your people.

²⁰And while I was still speaking, praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and casting down my plea for favor before the face of Yahweh my God on behalf of the holy mountain of my God;

²¹And while I was still speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, wearied by swift flight, was reaching me about the time of the evening grain offering.

²²He gave understanding and spoke with me. He said, Daniel, now I have come forth to make you act wisely, with understanding.

²³At the beginning of your pleas a word went out, and I have come to declare it, for you are precious. So consider the word, and understand the vision.

²⁴Seventy weeks are decreed for your people and for your holy city: to put an end to the transgression, to finish off sin, to cover guilt, to bring in the righteousness of the ages, to seal up vision and prophet, and to anoint the most holy place.

²⁵Know and act wisely: from the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until an anointed one, a ruler, there are seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it will return and be built, an open square and a trench, even in the distress of the times.

²⁶And after the sixty-two weeks an anointed one will be cut off, and there will be nothing for him; and the people of a leader who is coming will ruin the city and the holy place. Its end will come with a flood, and until the end there is war; desolations are decided.

²⁷He will make a covenant strong with the many for one week; and in the middle of the week he will bring sacrifice and grain offering to an end; and on a wing of abominations comes one who makes desolate, until complete destruction—what is decided—is poured out on the one who is desolate.