The People of Israel Confess Their Sin

1 Now on the twenty-fourth day of ^vthis month the people of Israel were assembled ^wwith fasting ^xand in sackcloth, ^yand with earth on their heads. 2 ^zAnd the Israelites¹ separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3 ^aAnd they stood up in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a quarter of the day; for another quarter of it they made confession and worshiped the Lord their God.

6 ^d“You are the Lord, you alone. ^eYou have made heaven, ^fthe heaven of heavens, ^gwith all their host, ^ethe earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; ^hand you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. 7 You are the Lord, the God ⁱwho chose Abram and brought him out of ^jUr of the Chaldeans ^kand gave him the name Abraham. 8 ^lYou found his heart faithful before you, ^mand made with him the covenant to give to his offspring ⁿthe land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. ^oAnd you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

9 ^p“And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard ^qtheir cry at the Red Sea, 10 ^rand performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that ^sthey acted arrogantly against our fathers. And ^tyou made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. 11 ^uAnd you divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on dry land, and you cast their pursuers into the depths, ^vas a stone into mighty waters. 12 By ^wa pillar of cloud you led them in the day, and by a pillar of fire in the night to light for them the way in which they should go. 13 ^xYou came down on Mount Sinai ^yand spoke with them from heaven and gave them ^zright rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, 14 ^aand you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. 15 ^bYou gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and ^cbrought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you ^dtold them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.