rsv Nehemiah:9:2-37 SEEK
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And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners ,
and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers .
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And they stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day ;
for another fourth of it they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God .
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Upon the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua ,
Bani ,
Kad '
mi-el ,
Shebani '
ah ,
Bunni ,
Sherebi '
ah ,
Bani ,
and Chena '
ni ;
and they cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God .
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Then the Levites ,
Jeshua ,
Kad '
mi-el ,
Bani ,
Hashabnei '
ah ,
Sherebi '
ah ,
Hodi '
ah ,
Shebani '
ah ,
and Pethahi '
ah ,
said , "
Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting .
Blessed be thy glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise ."
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And Ezra said : "
Thou art the LORD ,
thou alone ;
thou hast made heaven ,
the heaven of heavens ,
with all their host ,
the earth and all that is on it ,
the seas and all that is in them ;
and thou preservest all of them ;
and the host of heaven worships thee .
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Thou art the LORD ,
the God who didst choose Abram and bring him forth out of Ur of the Chalde '
ans and give him the name Abraham ;
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and thou didst find his heart faithful before thee ,
and didst make with him the covenant to give to his descendants the land of the Canaanite ,
the Hittite ,
the Amorite ,
the Per '
izzite ,
the Jeb '
usite ,
and the Gir '
gashite ;
and thou hast fulfilled thy promise ,
for thou art righteous .
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And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and hear their cry at the Red Sea ,
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and didst perform signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land ,
for thou knewest that they acted insolently against our fathers ;
and thou didst get thee a name ,
as it is to this day .
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And thou didst divide the sea before them ,
so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land ;
and thou didst cast their pursuers into the depths ,
as a stone into mighty waters .
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By a pillar of cloud thou didst lead them in the day ,
and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go .
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Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai ,
and speak with them from heaven and give them right ordinances and true laws ,
good statutes and commandments ,
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and thou didst make known to them thy holy sabbath and command them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses thy servant .
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Thou didst give them bread from heaven for their hunger and bring forth water for them from the rock for their thirst ,
and thou didst tell them to go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them .
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But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey thy commandments ;
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they refused to obey ,
and were not mindful of the wonders which thou didst perform among them ;
but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their bondage in Egypt .
But thou art a God ready to forgive ,
gracious and merciful ,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love ,
and didst not forsake them .
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Even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said , `
This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt ,'
and had committed great blasphemies ,
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thou in thy great mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness ;
the pillar of cloud which led them in the way did not depart from them by day ,
nor the pillar of fire by night which lighted for them the way by which they should go .
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Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them ,
and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth ,
and gavest them water for their thirst .
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Forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness ,
and they lacked nothing ;
their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell .
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And thou didst give them kingdoms and peoples ,
and didst allot to them every corner ;
so they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan .
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Thou didst multiply their descendants as the stars of heaven ,
and thou didst bring them into the land which thou hadst told their fathers to enter and possess .
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So the descendants went in and possessed the land ,
and thou didst subdue before them the inhabitants of the land ,
the Canaanites ,
and didst give them into their hands ,
with their kings and the peoples of the land ,
that they might do with them as they would .
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And they captured fortified cities and a rich land ,
and took possession of houses full of all good things ,
cisterns hewn out ,
vineyards ,
olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance ;
so they ate ,
and were filled and became fat ,
and delighted themselves in thy great goodness .
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Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee and cast thy law behind their back and killed thy prophets ,
who had warned them in order to turn them back to thee ,
and they committed great blasphemies .
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Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of their enemies ,
who made them suffer ;
and in the time of their suffering they cried to thee and thou didst hear them from heaven ;
and according to thy great mercies thou didst give them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies .
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But after they had rest they did evil again before thee ,
and thou didst abandon them to the hand of their enemies ,
so that they had dominion over them ;
yet when they turned and cried to thee thou didst hear from heaven ,
and many times thou didst deliver them according to thy mercies .
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And thou didst warn them in order to turn them back to thy law .
Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey thy commandments ,
but sinned against thy ordinances ,
by the observance of which a man shall live ,
and turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey .
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Many years thou didst bear with them ,
and didst warn them by thy Spirit through thy prophets ;
yet they would not give ear .
Therefore thou didst give them into the hand of the peoples of the lands .
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Nevertheless in thy great mercies thou didst not make an end of them or forsake them ;
for thou art a gracious and merciful God .
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Now therefore ,
our God ,
the great and mighty and terrible God ,
who keepest covenant and steadfast love ,
let not all the hardship seem little to thee that has come upon us ,
upon our kings ,
our princes ,
our priests ,
our prophets ,
our fathers ,
and all thy people ,
since the time of the kings of Assyria until this day .
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Yet thou hast been just in all that has come upon us ,
for thou hast dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly ;
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our kings ,
our princes ,
our priests ,
and our fathers have not kept thy law or heeded thy commandments and thy warnings which thou didst give them .
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They did not serve thee in their kingdom ,
and in thy great goodness which thou gavest them ,
and in the large and rich land which thou didst set before them ;
and they did not turn from their wicked works .
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Behold ,
we are slaves this day ;
in the land that thou gavest to our fathers to enjoy its fruit and its good gifts ,
behold ,
we are slaves .
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And its rich yield goes to the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins ;
they have power also over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure ,
and we are in great distress ."