Nehemiah 9:12–23

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.