¹And on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were gathered with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth upon them.

²And the seed of Israel separated themselves from all the children of the foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the guilt of their fathers.

³They stood up in their place and read aloud from the scroll of the instruction of Yahweh their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and bowed down to Yahweh their God.

⁴And on the ascent of the Levites stood Jeshua and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani, and they cried out with a loud voice to Yahweh their God.

⁵Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Rise, bless Yahweh your God from forever until forever. And may they bless the name of your weightiness, and may it be lifted high above all blessing and praise.”

⁶You are Yahweh, you alone. You made the skies, the sky of the skies, and all their host, the land and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you keep them all alive, and the host of the skies bows down to you.

⁷You yourself are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram, brought him out from Ur of the Chaldeans, and made his name Abraham.

⁸You found his heart faithful before your face, and cut the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his seed; and you made your words stand, for you are righteous.

⁹You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their outcry at the Sea of Reeds.

¹⁰And you set signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his slaves, and upon all the people of his land, for you knew that they had acted insolently against them; and you made for yourself a name, as it is this day.

¹¹You split the sea open before them, and they passed over in the middle of the sea on dry ground; and you threw their pursuers into the depths like a stone into fierce waters.

¹²And in a pillar of the cloud you led them by day, and in a pillar of the fire by night, to make shine to them the way which they will go in it.

¹³And over the mountain of Sinai you came down, and spoke with them from the heavens, and gave to them justices pleased well right, and instruction of the stability, statutes and good commandments.

¹⁴You made known to them your holy sabbath, and charged them with commandments, statutes, and instruction by the hand of Moses your slave.

¹⁵And food from the skies you gave them for their hunger, and water from the crag you brought out for them for their thirst; and you said to them, to go in and take possession of the land which you raised your hand to give them.

¹⁶But they, our fathers, acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks, and did not listen to your commandments.

¹⁷They refused to listen, and did not remember your wonders that you had done among them; they stiffened their necks and set a leader to return to their servitude in their rebellion. But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, slow of anger and great in loyal love, and you did not forsake them.

¹⁸Even when they made themselves a cast calf and said, “This is your God who brought you up from Egypt,” and did great acts of contempt,

¹⁹Yet you in your great compassion did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud did not depart from over them by day, to lead them on the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, to light up for them the way they were to walk in it.

²⁰And you gave your good breath to make them act wisely, and you did not withhold your manna from their mouth, and you gave them water for their thirst.

²¹Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they did not lack; their cloaks did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

²²You gave them kingdoms and peoples, and apportioned them to every corner; and they took possession of the land of Sihon, the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.

²³And their sons you multiplied like the stars of the skies, and you brought them into the land which you had said to their fathers to go in and take possession of.

²⁴So the children came in and took possession of the land; you subdued before them those who dwelled in the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, along with their kings and the peoples of the land, to do with them as they pleased.

²⁵They captured fortified cities and rich ground, and took possession of houses full of every good thing, cisterns dug out, vineyards, olive trees, and trees of food in abundance; and they ate and were satisfied and grew fat, and luxuriated in your great goodness.

²⁶But they were disobedient and rebelled against you; they threw your instruction behind their backs and killed your prophets, who had warned them to bring them back to you; and they did great acts of contempt.

²⁷And you set them in the hand of their enemy, and caused distress to them; and in the time of their distress they will cry to you, and you from the heavens you will hear, and as your great compassion you will give to them saved, and they will save them from the hand of their enemy.

²⁸And as it settled to them they will return to make evil before your face, and you forsook them in the hand of their enemies, and made to rule in them; and they returned and cried to you, and you from the heavens you will hear, and you will deliver them as your great compassion, many times.

²⁹You warned them to bring them back to your instruction, but they seethed with insolence and did not listen to your commandments, and they sinned against your justices, which a person does and lives by. They set a stubborn shoulder, stiffened their neck, and did not listen.

³⁰And you drew out many years over them, and you warned them by your breath through the hand of your prophets, but they did not give ear; so you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

³¹And in your great compassion you did not make a full end of them, and did not abandon them, for you are a gracious and compassionate God.

³²And now, our God, the great God, the mighty and awesome, who keeps the covenant and the loyal love, do not let all the hardship that has found us be small before your face: upon our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our fathers, and all your people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day.

³³And you are righteous in all that has come upon us, for you have acted reliably, and we have acted wickedly.

³⁴And our kings, our officials, our priests, and our fathers did not carry out your instruction, and did not pay attention to your commandments and to your testimonies, which you warned them by.

³⁵And they, in their kingdom, and in your great goodness that you gave them, and in the wide and rich land that you set before them, did not serve you and did not turn back from their evil deeds.

³⁶Look, today we are slaves; and the land that you gave to our fathers, to eat its fruit and its good things, look, we are slaves on it.

³⁷And its harvest is multiplying for the kings whom you set over us because of our sins; and they rule over our bodies and over our livestock as they please, and we are in great distress.

³⁸And in all this we are cutting a covenant of faith and writing it; and on the sealed document are our officials, our Levites, our priests.