Nehemiah 9:16-21

New Living Translation

¹⁶ “But our ancestors were proud and stubborn, and they paid no attention to your commands. ¹⁷ They refused to obey and did not remember the miracles you had done for them. Instead, they became stubborn and appointed a leader to take them back to their slavery in Egypt.^[a] But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and merciful, slow to become angry, and rich in unfailing love. You did not abandon them, ¹⁸ even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said, ‘This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!’ They committed terrible blasphemies.

¹⁹ “But in your great mercy you did not abandon them to die in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud still led them forward by day, and the pillar of fire showed them the way through the night. ²⁰ You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst. ²¹ For forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell!