Nehemiah 9:10–25

¹⁰You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,

all his officials, and all the people of his land,

for You knew they had acted with arrogance

against our fathers.

You made a name for Yourself

that endures to this day.

¹¹You divided the sea before them,

and they crossed through it on dry ground.

You hurled their pursuers into the depths

like a stone into raging waters.

¹²You led them with a pillar of cloud by day

and a pillar of fire by night,

to light for them the way

in which they should travel.

¹³You came down on Mount Sinai

and spoke with them from heaven.

You gave them just ordinances, true laws,

and good statutes and commandments.

¹⁴You revealed to them Your holy Sabbath

and gave them commandments and statutes and laws

through Your servant Moses.

¹⁵In their hunger You gave them bread from heaven;

in their thirst You brought them water from the rock.

You told them to go in and possess the land

that You had sworn to give them.

¹⁶But they and our fathers became arrogant and stiff-necked

and did not obey Your commandments.

¹⁷They refused to listen and failed to remember

the wonders You performed among them.

They stiffened their necks and appointed a leader

to return them to their bondage in Egypt.^b

But You are a forgiving God,

gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and rich in loving devotion,

and You did not forsake them.

¹⁸Even when they cast for themselves

an image of a calf and said,

‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’

and when they committed terrible blasphemies,

¹⁹You in Your great compassion

did not forsake them in the wilderness.

By day the pillar of cloud never turned away

from guiding them on their path;

and by the night the pillar of fire

illuminated the way they should go.

²⁰You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them.

You did not withhold Your manna from their mouths,

and You gave them water for their thirst.

²¹For forty years You sustained them in the wilderness,

so that they lacked nothing.

Their clothes did not wear out

and their feet did not swell.

²²You gave them kingdoms and peoples

and allotted to them every corner of the land.

So they took the land of Sihon^c king of Heshbon

and of Og king of Bashan.

²³You multiplied their descendants

like the stars of heaven

and brought them to the land

You had told their fathers to enter and possess.

²⁴So their descendants went in and possessed the land;

You subdued before them the Canaanites dwelling in the land.

You delivered into their hands the kings and peoples of the land,

to do with them as they wished.

²⁵They captured fortified cities and fertile land

and took houses full of all goods,

wells already dug,

vineyards, olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance.

So they ate and were filled;

they grew fat and delighted in Your great goodness.