Let thy ear now be attentive, and thy eyes open, that thou mayest hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, and confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.

We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the judgments, which thou commandedst thy servant Moses.

Remember, I beseech thee, the word that thou commandedst thy servant Moses, saying, If ye transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations:

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

O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thy ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants, who desire to fear thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king's cup-bearer.

Wherefore the king said to me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was very greatly afraid,

And I said to the king, If it should please the king, and if thy servant hath found favor in thy sight, that thou wouldst send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' sepulchers, 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? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

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

Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a 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, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous:

And madest known to them thy holy sabbath, and commandedst them precepts, statutes, and laws, by the hand of Moses thy servant:

But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments,

And refused to obey, neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst perform among them; but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage: but thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and forsookest them not.

Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy God that brought thee out of Egypt, and had wrought great provocations;

Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which 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.

And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards and olive-yards, and fruit trees in abundance: so they ate and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.

Nevertheless, they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets who testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.

Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who distressed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried to thee, thou hearedest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them deliverers, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee: therefore thou leftest them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned and cried to thee, thou hearedest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;

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

Yet many years didst thou forbear over them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore thou gavest them into the hand of the people of the lands.

Nevertheless, for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.

Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.

Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened to thy commandments and thy testimonies, with which thou didst testify against them.

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

And I commanded the Levites, that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy mercy.