The People of Israel Confess Their Sin

9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of ^(A)this month the people of Israel were assembled ^(B)with fasting ^(C)and in sackcloth, ^(D)and with earth on their heads. ^2 (E)And the Israelites^[a] separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. ^3 (F)And 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. ⁴ On the stairs of the Levites stood ^(G)Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani; and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. ⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. ^(H)Blessed be your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

^{6 [b] (I)}“You are the Lord, you alone. ^(J)You have made heaven, ^(K)the heaven of heavens, ^(L)with all their host, ^(M)the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; ^(N)and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. ⁷ You are the Lord, the God ^(O)who chose Abram and brought him out of ^(P)Ur of the Chaldeans ^(Q)and gave him the name Abraham. ^8 (R)You found his heart faithful before you, ^(S)and made with him the covenant to give to his offspring ^(T)the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite. ^(U)And you have kept your promise, for you are righteous.

^9 (V)“And you saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and heard ^(W)their cry at the Red Sea, ^10 (X)and performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for you knew that ^(Y)they acted arrogantly against our fathers. And ^(Z)you made a name for yourself, as it is to this day. ^11 (AA)And 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, ^(AB)as a stone into mighty waters. ¹² By ^(AC)a 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 (AD)You came down on Mount Sinai ^(AE)and spoke with them from heaven and gave them ^(AF)right rules and true laws, good statutes and commandments, ^14 (AG)and you made known to them your holy Sabbath and commanded them commandments and statutes and a law by Moses your servant. ^15 (AH)You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and ^(AI)brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and you ^(AJ)told them to go in to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.

¹⁶ “But they and our fathers ^(AK)acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey your commandments. ¹⁷ They refused to obey ^(AL)and were not mindful of the wonders that you performed among them, but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt.^[c] But you are a God ready to forgive, ^(AM)gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. ¹⁸ Even ^(AN)when they had made for themselves a golden^[d] calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ ^(AO)and had committed great blasphemies, ¹⁹ you ^(AP)in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. ^(AQ)The pillar of cloud to lead them in the way did not depart from them by day, ^(AR)nor the pillar of fire by night to light for them the way by which they should go. ^20 (AS)You gave your good Spirit to instruct them ^(AT)and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst. ^21 (AU)Forty years you sustained them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing. Their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

²² “And you gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. ^(AV)So they took possession of the land of Sihon king of Heshbon ^(AW)and the land of Og king of Bashan. ²³ You multiplied their children ^(AX)as the stars of heaven, and you brought them into the land that you had told their fathers to enter and possess. ^24 (AY)So the descendants went in and possessed the land, ^(AZ)and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would. ²⁵ And they captured ^(BA)fortified cities and ^(BB)a rich land, and took possession of ^(BC)houses full of all good things, cisterns already hewn, vineyards, olive orchards and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled ^(BD)and became fat and delighted themselves in ^(BE)your great goodness.

Abraham Justified by Faith

4 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, ^(A)our forefather according to the flesh? ² For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but ^(B)not before God. ³ For what does the Scripture say? ^(C)“Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.” ⁴ Now ^(D)to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. ⁵ And to the one who does not work but ^(E)believes in^[a] him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, ⁶ just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

⁹ Is this blessing then only for ^(H)the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? ^(I)For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. ¹⁰ How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. ^11 (J)He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was ^(K)to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, ¹² and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

The Promise Realized Through Faith

¹³ For ^(L)the promise to Abraham and his offspring ^(M)that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. ^14 (N)For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. ¹⁵ For ^(O)the law brings wrath, but ^(P)where there is no law ^(Q)there is no transgression.