All Israel joined David at Hebron and said, “Look, we are your very flesh and blood!

But as for us, the Lord is our God and we have not rejected him. Aaron’s descendants serve as the Lord’s priests and the Levites assist them with the work.

So we worked on, with half holding spears, from dawn till dusk.

There were those who said, “With our sons and daughters, we are many. We must obtain grain in order to eat and stay alive.”

There were others who said, “We are putting up our fields, our vineyards, and our houses as collateral in order to obtain grain during the famine.”

You are righteous with regard to all that has happened to us, for you have acted faithfully. It is we who have been in the wrong!

(10:1) “Because of all of this we are entering into a binding covenant in written form; our leaders, our Levites, and our priests have affixed their names on the sealed document.”

For we were born yesterday and do not have knowledge, since our days on earth are but a shadow.

Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we depend on the Lord our God.

Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will continually thank you. We will tell coming generations of your praiseworthy acts.

For he is our God; we are the people of his pasture, the sheep he owns. Today, if only you would obey him!

Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us and we belong to him; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

We escaped with our lives, like a bird from a hunter’s snare. The snare broke, and we escaped.

But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain; even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done.

Yet, Lord, you are our father. We are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the product of your labor.

They say, ‘The time is not near to build houses; the city is a cooking pot and we are the meat in it.’

So now we consider the arrogant to be happy; indeed, those who practice evil are successful. In fact, those who challenge God escape!’”

Why should we die before your very eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we, with our land, will become Pharaoh’s slaves. Give us seed that we may live and not die. Then the land will not become desolate.”

Then they said to one another, “It’s not right what we’re doing! This is a day to celebrate, but we haven’t told anyone. If we wait until dawn, we’ll be punished. So come on, let’s go and inform the royal palace.”

From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and priests, have been delivered over by the local kings to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment – right up to the present time.