Nehemiah 9:16-21

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

¹⁶ “But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their neck and did not obey thy commandments; ¹⁷ they refused to obey, and were not mindful of the wonders which thou didst perform among them; but they stiffened their neck and appointed a leader to return to their bondage in Egypt. But thou art a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and didst not forsake them. ¹⁸ Even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed great blasphemies, ¹⁹ thou in thy great mercies didst not forsake them in the wilderness; the pillar of cloud which led them in the way did not depart from them by day, nor the pillar of fire by night which lighted for them the way by which they should go. ²⁰ Thou gavest thy good Spirit to instruct them, and didst not withhold thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst. ²¹ Forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, and they lacked nothing; their clothes did not wear out and their feet did not swell.