9 The people repent, and forsake their strange wives. 5 The Levites exhort them to praise God, 6 Declaring his wonders, 26 And their ingratitude, 30 And God’s great mercies toward them.
1 In the four and twentieth day of this [a]month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth upon them.
2 (And they that were of the seed of Israel were separated from all the [b]strangers) and they stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.
3 And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the Law of the Lord their God four times on the day, and they [c]confessed and worshipped the Lord their God four times.
4 Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice unto the Lord their God.
5 And the Levites said, even Jeshua and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah, Stand up and praise the Lord your God forever and ever, and let them praise thy glorious Name, O God, which excelleth above all thanksgiving and praise.
6 Thou art Lord alone: thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of all heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that are in them and thou preservest them all and the host of the heaven worshippeth thee.
7 Thou art, O Lord, the God, that hast chosen Abram, and broughtest him out of (A)Ur in Chaldeans, and (B)madest his name Abraham,
8 And foundest his heart faithful before thee, (C)and madest a Covenant with him, to give unto his seed the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, and Perizzites, and Jebusites, and Girgashites, and hast performed thy words, because thou art just.
9 (D)Thou hast also considered the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the red Sea,
10 And showed tokens and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them: therefore thou madest thee a Name, as appeareth this day.
11 (E)For thou didst break up the Sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry land: and those that pursued them, hast thou cast into the bottoms as a stone, in the mighty waters:
12 And (F)leddest them in the day with a pillar of a cloud, and in the night with a pillar of fire to give them light in the way that they went.
13 (G)Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai, and spakest unto them from heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, ordinances and good Commandments,
14 And declaredst unto them thine holy Sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, and ordinances, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:
15 (H)And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, (I)and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst: and (J)promisedst them that they should go in, and take possession of the land: for the which thou hadst lifted up thine hand for to give them.
16 But they and our fathers behaved themselves proudly and hardened their neck, so that they hearkened not unto thy Commandments,
17 But refused to obey, and would not remember thy marvelous works that thou hadst done for them, but hardened their necks, and had in their heads to return to their bondage by their rebellion: but thou, O God of mercies, gracious and full of compassion, of long-suffering, and of great mercy, yet forsookest them not.
18 Moreover, when they made them a molten calf (and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt) and committed great blasphemies,
19 Yet thou for thy great mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: (K)the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them the way, neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way whereby they should go.
20 Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy Manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.
21 Thou didst also feed them forty years in the wilderness: they lacked nothing: (L)their clothes waxed not old, and their feet [d]swelled not.
22 And thou gavest them kingdoms and people, and [e]scatteredst them into corners: so they possessed (M)the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.
23 And thou didst multiply their children like the stars of the heaven, and broughtest them into the land, whereof thou hadst spoken unto their fathers, that they should go, and possess it.
24 So the children went in, and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, even the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings and the people of the land, that they might do with them what they would.
25 And they took their strong cities and the fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, cisterns dug out, vineyards and olives, and trees for food in abundance, and they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and lived in pleasure through thy great goodness.
26 Yet they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy Law behind their backs, and slew thy Prophets (which [f]protested among them to turn them unto thee) and committed great blasphemies.
27 Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies that vexed them: yet in the time of their affliction, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from the heaven, and through thy great mercies thou gavest them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries.
28 But when they had [g]rest, they returned to do evil before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them, yet when they converted and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven, and deliveredst them according to thy great mercies many times,
29 And protestedst among them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy Law: but they behaved themselves proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments ((N)which a man should do and live in them) and [h]pulled away the shoulder, and were stiff-necked, and would not [i]hear.
30 Yet thou [j]didst forbear them many years, and protestedst among them by thy Spirit, even by the hand of thy Prophets, but they would not hear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands.
31 Yet for thy great mercies thou hast not consumed them, neither forsaken them: for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
32 Now therefore our God, (O)thou great God, mighty and terrible, that keepest covenant and (P)mercy, let not all the affliction that hath come unto us, seem a little before thee, that is, to our Kings, to our Princes, and to our Priests, and to our Prophets, and to our fathers, and to all thy people since the time of the [k]kings of Assyria unto this day.
33 Surely thou art just in all that is come upon us: for thou hast [l]dealt truly, but we have done wickedly.
34 And our kings and our princes, our priests and our fathers have not done thy Law, nor regarded thy commandments, nor thy protestations, wherewith thou hast [m]protested among them.
35 And they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou showedst unto them, and in the large and fat land which thou didst set before them, and have not converted from their evil works.
36 Behold, we are servants this day, and the land that thou gavest unto our fathers, to eat the [n]fruit thereof, and the goodness thereof, behold, we are servants therein.
37 And it yieldeth much fruit unto the kings whom thou hast set over us, because of our sins: and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great affliction.
38 Now because of all this we make [o]a sure covenant, and write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our Priests seal unto it.
Footnotes
- Nehemiah 9:1 Meaning, the seventh.
- Nehemiah 9:2 Hebrew, strange children.
- Nehemiah 9:3 They made confession of their sins, and used prayers.
- Nehemiah 9:21 Though the way was tedious and long.
- Nehemiah 9:22 Meaning, the heathen whom he drove out.
- Nehemiah 9:26 Taking heaven and earth to witness, that God would destroy them, except they returned, as 2 Chron. 24:19.
- Nehemiah 9:28 He declareth how God’s mercies ever contended with the wickedness of the people, who ever in their prosperity forgat God.
- Nehemiah 9:29 Which is a similitude taken of oxen that shrink at the yoke or burden, as Zech. 7:11.
- Nehemiah 9:29 When thou didst admonish them by thy Prophets.
- Nehemiah 9:30 Hebrew, thou didst prolong upon them many years.
- Nehemiah 9:32 By whom we were led away into captivity, and have been appointed to be slain, as Esther 3:13.
- Nehemiah 9:33 He confesseth that all these things came to them justly for their sins, but he appealeth from God’s justice to his mercies.
- Nehemiah 9:34 That thou wouldest destroy them, except they would return to thee, as verse 26.
- Nehemiah 9:36 That is, to be the Lord’s therof.
- Nehemiah 9:38 Thus by affliction they promise to keep God’s commandments, whereunto they could not be brought by God’s great benefits.
Cross references
- Nehemiah 9:7 : Gen. 11:31
- Nehemiah 9:7 : Gen. 17:5
- Nehemiah 9:8 : Gen. 15:18
- Nehemiah 9:9 : Exod. 2:76; Exod. 14:16
- Nehemiah 9:11 : Exod. 14:10
- Nehemiah 9:12 : Exod. 13:10
- Nehemiah 9:13 : Exod. 19:18,20; Exod. 20:1
- Nehemiah 9:15 : Exod. 16:18
- Nehemiah 9:15 : Exod. 17:6
- Nehemiah 9:15 : Deut. 1:8
- Nehemiah 9:19 : Exod. 13:22; Num. 14:14; 1 Cor. 10:1
- Nehemiah 9:21 : Deut. 8:4
- Nehemiah 9:22 : Num. 21:26
- Nehemiah 9:29 : Lev. 18:5; Ezek. 20:11; Rom. 10:5; Gal. 3:12
- Nehemiah 9:32 : Exod. 34:6,7
- Nehemiah 9:32 : Ps. 143:1,2