18 Incline your ear, my God, and listen; open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that is called by your name, for we are not presenting our pleas for mercy before you because of our righteousness, but rather because of your great compassion.
19 Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, pay heed and act! You must not delay for your sake, my God; because your city and your people are called by your name.”
20 Now I was still speaking and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my plea before Yahweh my God, on behalf of the holy mountain of my God.
21 And I was still speaking in prayer, and the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision previously, in my weariness touched me at the time of the evening offering.
22 And he instructed me and he spoke with me and he said, “Daniel I have now come out to teach you understanding.
23 At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out, and now I have come to declare it, for you are highly esteemed, and so consider the word and understand the vision.
24 “Seventy weeks is decreed for your people and for your holy city, to put an end to the transgression and to seal up sin and to make atonement for guilt and to bring in everlasting righteousness and to seal vision and prophet and to anoint the most holy place.