Nehemiah

¹⁶“But they and our fathers behaved proudly, hardened their neck, didn’t listen to your commandments, ¹⁷and refused to obey. They weren’t mindful of your wonders that you did among them, but hardened their neck, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage. But you are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and didn’t forsake them. ¹⁸Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies; ¹⁹yet you in your manifold mercies didn’t forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud didn’t depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither did the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go. ²⁰You gave also your good Spirit to instruct them, and didn’t withhold your manna from their mouth, and gave them water for their thirst. ²¹“Yes, forty years you sustained them in the wilderness. They lacked nothing. Their clothes didn’t grow old, and their feet didn’t swell. ²²Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you allotted according to their portions. So they possessed the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.