We have acted very perversely against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that thou commandedst thy servant Moses.

Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the peoples;

And they are thy servants and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power and by thy strong hand.

And the king said to me, Why is thy face sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sadness of heart. And I was very sore afraid.

And the king said to me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of the heavens.

And I said to the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.

And the king said to me the queen also sitting by him, For how long shall thy journey be, and when wilt thou return? And it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

And they said, We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do, as thou hast said. And I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they should do according to this promise.

in which was written: It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says it, that thou and the Jews think to rebel, for which cause thou buildest the wall, and according to these words thou wilt become their king.

And thou hast also appointed prophets to proclaim concerning thee at Jerusalem saying, There is a king in Judah! And now it will be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.

And I sent to him, saying, There are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart.

Thou art the Same, thou alone, Jehovah, who hast made the heaven of heavens, and all their host, the earth and all that is therein, the seas and all that is therein. And thou quickenest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Thou art the Same, Jehovah Elohim, who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and gavest him the name of Abraham;

and foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest the covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it to his seed; and thou hast performed thy words, for thou art righteous.

And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heardest their cry by the Red Sea;

and didst shew signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants, and upon all the people of his land; for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them, and thou didst make thee a name, as it is this day.

And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they went through the midst of the sea on dry ground; and their pursuers thou threwest into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters.

And thou leddest them in the day by a pillar of cloud, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

And thou camest down on mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from the heavens, and gavest them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments.

And thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and prescribedst for them commandments and statutes and a law, through Moses thy servant.

And thou gavest them bread from the heavens for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and didst say to them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

and refused to obey, neither were they mindful of thy wonders which thou hadst done among them; but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion made a captain to return to their bondage. But thou art a +God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great loving-kindness, and thou forsookest them not.

yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud departed not from over them by day, to lead them on the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.

Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.

Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing; their clothes grew not old, and their feet swelled not.

And thou gavest them kingdoms and peoples, and didst divide them by countries; and they possessed the land of Sihon, as well the land of the king of Heshbon, as the land of Og king of Bashan.

And their children thou didst multiply as the stars of heaven, and thou broughtest them into the land concerning which thou didst say to their fathers that they should go in to possess it.

And the children went in and possessed the land; and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, both their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

And thou gavest them into the hand of their oppressors, and they oppressed them; and in the time of their distress, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from the heavens, and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their oppressors.

But when they had rest, they did evil again before thee; and thou didst leave them in the hand of their enemies, and they had dominion over them; and again they cried unto thee, and thou heardest them from the heavens, and many times didst thou deliver them, according to thy mercies.

And thou testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law; but they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thine ordinances (which if a man do, he shall live in them); and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.

And many years didst thou forbear with them, and testifiedst against them by thy Spirit through thy prophets; but they would not give ear: and thou gavest them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

Nevertheless for thy manifold mercies' sake, thou didst not make a full end of them nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.

But thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast acted according to truth, and we have done wickedly.

And our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers, have not performed thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.

And they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land that thou didst set before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.

Behold, we are servants this day, and the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are bondmen in it.

And it yieldeth much increase 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 distress.