5 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
6 Thou even thou art LORD alone thou hast made heaven the heaven of heavens with all their host the earth and all things that are therein the seas and all that is therein and thou preservest them all and the host of heaven worshippeth thee
7 Thou art the LORD the God who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees and gavest him the name of Abraham
8 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
9 And didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heardest their cry by the Red sea
10 And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh and on all his servants and on all the people of his land for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them So didst thou get thee a name as it is this day
11 And thou didst divide the sea before them so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps as a stone into the mighty waters
12 Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar and in the night by a pillar of fire to give them light in the way wherein they should go
13 Thou camest down also upon mount Sinai and spakest with them from heaven and gavest them right judgments and true. laws good statutes and commandments
14 And madest known unto them thy holy sabbath and commandedst them precepts statutes and laws by the hand of Moses thy servant
15 And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn __ to give them
16 But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks and hearkened not to thy commandments
17 And refused to obey neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst 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
18 Yea when they had made them a molten calf and said This is thy God that brought thee up out of Egypt and had wrought great provocations
19 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 shew them light and the way wherein they should go
20 Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth and gavest them water for their thirst
21 Yea forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness so that they lacked nothing their clothes waxed not old and their feet swelled not
22 Moreover thou gavest them kingdoms and nations and didst divide them into corners so they possessed the land of Sihon and the land of the king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan
23 Their children also multipliedst thou as the stars of heaven and broughtest them into the land concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers that they should go in to possess it
24 So 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 with their kings and the people of the land that they might do with them as they would
25 And they took strong cities and a fat land and possessed houses full of all goods wells digged vineyards and oliveyards and fruit trees in abundance so they did eat and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in thy great goodness
26 Nevertheless they were disobedient and rebelled against thee and cast thy law behind their backs and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee and they wrought great provocations
27 Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies who vexed them and in the time of their trouble when they cried unto thee thou heardest them from heaven and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours who saved them out of the hand of their enemies
28 But after they had rest they did evil again before thee therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies so that they had the dominion over them yet when they returned and cried unto thee thou heardest them from heaven and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies
29 And testifiedst against them that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law yet they dealt proudly and hearkened not unto thy commandments but sinned against thy judgments which if a man do he shall live in themand withdrew __ the shoulder and hardened their neck and would not hear
30 Yet many years didst thou forbear them and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets yet would they not give ear therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands
31 Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them nor forsake them for thou art a gracious and merciful God
32 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 unto this day
33 Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us for thou hast done right but we have done wickedly
34 Neither have our kings our princes our priests nor our fathers kept thy law nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies wherewith thou didst testify against them
35 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
36 Behold we are servants this day and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof behold we are servants in it
37 And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins also they have dominion over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure and we are in great distress
38 And because of all this we make a sure covenant and write it and our princes Levites and priests seal unto it
