NEHEMIAH.
Chapter 9.
Forsooth in the four and twentieth day of this month, the sons of Israel came together in fasting, and in sack-cloths, and earth was on them. 
And the seed of the sons of Israel was separated from each alien man. And they stood before the Lord, and acknowledged their sins, and the wickednesses of their fathers. 
And they rose together to stand; and they read in the book of the law of the Lord their God four times in the day, and four times in the night; they acknowledged, and praised the Lord their God. 
Forsooth they rised up on the degrees, of deacons or Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Bunni, Shebaniah, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani. And the deacons or Levites cried with great voice to their Lord God. 
And the deacons or Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Rise ye, and bless ye the Lord your God, from without beginning and till into without end; and Lord, bless they the high name of thy glory in all blessing and praising. 
Thou thyself, Lord, art alone, or art alone God; thou madest heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host of those heavens; thou madest the earth and all things that be therein; thou madest the seas and all things that be in them; and thou quickenest all these things; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee. 
Thou thyself art the Lord God, that choosedest Abram, and leddest him out of the fire of Chaldees, and thou settedest, or calledest, his name Abraham; 
and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and thou hast smitten with him a bond of peace, that thou wouldest give to him the land of Canaanites, of Hittites, of Hivites, of Amorites, and of Perizzites, and of Jebusites, and of Girgashites, that thou wouldest give it to his seed; and thou hast fulfilled thy words, for thou art just. 
And thou hast seen the torment of our fathers in Egypt, and thou heardest the cry of them upon the Red Sea. 
And thou hast given signs and great wonders in Pharaoh, and in all his servants, and in all the people of that land; for thou knowest, that they did proudly against our fathers; and thou madest to thee a name, as also in this day. 
And thou partedest the sea before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea in the dry place; and thou castedest down the pursuers of them into the depth, as a stone in strong waters. 
And in a pillar of cloud thou were the leader of them by day, and in a pillar of fire by night, that the way, by which they entered, should appear to them. 
Also thou camest down at the hill of Sinai, and spakest with them from heaven, and thou gavest to them rightful dooms, and the law of truth, ceremonies, and good commandments. 
And thou showedest to them an hallowed sabbath; and thou command-edest to them commandments, and ceremonies, and law, in the hand of Moses, thy servant. 
And thou gavest to them bread from heaven in their hunger; and thou leddest out of the stone water to them thirsting; and thou saidest to them, that they should enter, and have in possession the land, upon the which land thou raisedest up thine hand, that thou shouldest give it to them. 
But they and our fathers did proudly, and made hard their nolls, and heard not thy commandments. 
And they would not hear; and they had not mind of thy marvels, which thou haddest done to them; and they made hard their nolls; and they gave the head, that they were all-turned to their servage as by strife; but thou art God who is helpful, meek, and merciful, abiding long, either patient, and of much merciful doing, and forsookest not them; 
and when they had made to them a molten calf, as by strife, and had said, This is thy God, Israel, that led thee out of Egypt, and they did great blasphemies to thy name. 
But thou, Lord, in thy many mercies leftest, or forsookest, not them in desert; for a pillar of cloud went not away from them by the day, that it should lead them into the way whither they were to go; and the pillar of fire went not away from them by night, that it should show to them the way, by which they should enter. 
And thou gavest to them thy good Spirit, that taught them; and thou forbadest not thine angel’s meat, or thy manna, from their mouths, and thou gavest to them water in their thirst. 
Forty years thou feddest them in desert, and nothing failed to them; their clothes waxed not eld, and their feet were not hurt, or swollen. 
And thou gavest to them realms, and peoples; and thou partedest lots, either heritages, to them, and they had in possession the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan. 
And thou multipliedest the sons of them, as the stars of heaven or of the firmament; and thou broughtest them to the land, of which thou saidest to their fathers, that they should enter, and hold it in possession. 
And the sons of Israel came, and had the land in possession; and before them thou madest low the dwellers of the land, Canaanites; and thou gavest them into the hands of the sons of Israel, and the kings of them, and the peoples of the land, that they did to them, as it pleased them. 
And they took cities made strong, and fat earth; and they had in possession houses full of all goods, cisterns made of other men, vineries or vines, and places of olives, and many apple trees. And they ate, and were fulfilled, and were made fat; and had plenty of riches in thy great goodness. 
And yet they stirred thee to wrath-fulness, and went away from thee, and casted away thy law behind their backs; and they killed thy prophets, that witnessed to them, that they should turn again to thee; and they did great blasphemies. 
And thou gavest them into the hands of their enemies; and they tormented them; and in the time of their tribulation they cried to thee; and thou heardest them from heaven, and by thy many merciful doings thou gavest them saviours, that saved them from the hand of their enemies. 
And when they had rested, they turned again to do evil in thy sight; and thou forsookest them in the hand of their enemies, and their enemies had them in possession; then they were turned again to thee, and cried to thee; and in thy mercy doing thou heardest them from heaven, and deliveredest them by many times. 
And thou witnessedest to them, that they should turn again to thy law; but they did proudly, and heard not thy behests, and sinned in thy dooms, which a man that shall do, shall live in those or them; but they gave their shoulder and went away, and they made hard their nolls, and would not obey to thy dooms. 
And thou drewest along many years upon them, and thou witnessed-est to them in thy Spirit, by the hand, or telling, of thy prophets, that they were law-breakers; and they heard them not; and therefore thou gavest them into the hand of the peoples of lands. 
But in thy mercies full many, thou madest not them to be into wasting, neither thou forsookest them; for thou art God of merciful doings, and meek. 
Now therefore, our Lord God, great God, strong, and fearedful, keeping covenant and mercy, turn thou not away thy face from us in all the travail that hath found us, our kings, and our princes, and our fathers, and our priests, and our prophets, and all thy people, from the days of king Assur till to this day. 
And Lord, thou art just in all things, that came up on us, for thou didest truth to us; but we have done wickedly. 
And our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our fathers, have not done thy law; and they perceived not thy behests and thy witnessings, which thou hast witnessed in thy behests. 
And they, in their good realms, and in thy much goodness which thou gavest to them, and in the full large land and fat, which thou haddest given in the sight of them, served not thee, neither turned again from their worst studies. 
Lo! we ourselves be thralls today; and the land which thou gavest to our fathers, that they should eat the bread thereof, and the goods that be thereof, is thrall; and we ourselves be thralls, either bondmen, in that land. 
And the fruits thereof be multiplied to kings, which thou hast set or put upon us for our sins; and they be lords of our bodies, and of our beasts, by their will, and we be in great tribulation. 
Therefore on all these things we ourselves smite and write bond of peace, and our princes, our deacons or Levites, and our priests aseal. 
