Daniel’s Prayer for His People 3 UST { After I read that,} I resolved to ask the Lord God to help us. I prayed to him very earnestly.{ To show how sorry I was for our sins,} I ate little food, I wore rough cloth, and I put ashes on my head. BSB BSB: So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and petition, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
4 UST As I prayed to Yahweh my God, I admitted that we Israelites had sinned. I said,“Oh Lord, you are the powerful God whom everyone should respect! You keep your promises and you faithfully love people who love you and obey your laws. BSB BSB: And I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed, “O, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant of loving devotion to those who love Him and keep His commandments,
5 UST But we Israelites have sinned against you. We have done things that are wrong. We have done wicked things and rebelled against you. We have disobeyed many of your laws. BSB BSB: we have sinned and done wrong. We have acted wickedly and rebelled. We have turned away from Your commandments and ordinances.
6 UST You sent prophets to bring messages from you to our kings, our other rulers, and our ancestors. They spoke those messages to all the Israelite people. But we did not obey what they told us to do. BSB BSB: We have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, leaders, fathers, and all the people of the land.
7 UST Lord, you were right to punish us for sinning so seriously against you. But as a result, we are now in a shameful condition. This is true of the Israelites who still live in Jerusalem and other places in Judea. It is also true of the Israelites whose enemies you allowed to take away to other countries. Some of those countries are near Israel, and others are farther away. BSB BSB: To You, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah, the people of Jerusalem, and all Israel near and far, in all the countries to which You have driven us because of our unfaithfulness to You.
8 UST Yahweh, we have sinned against you, and so we and our kings, our other rulers, and our ancestors are in a shameful condition. BSB BSB: O LORD, we are covered with shame—our kings, our leaders, and our fathers—because we have sinned against You.
9 UST I ask you, our Lord and God, to forgive us and treat us kindly, even though we have rebelled against you. BSB BSB: To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, even though we have rebelled against Him
10 UST You sent your prophets to speak to us directly and tell us to obey your laws. But we did not obey what you, our God, said to us through them. BSB BSB: and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God to walk in His laws, which He set before us through His servants the prophets.
11 UST All of us Israelite people have failed to do what your law requires and have done other things instead. We have not obeyed what you told us to do. We have sinned against you, and as a result, you have made very bad things happen to us. You swore that you would do that if we sinned so badly. Your servant Moses wrote this in the law. BSB BSB: All Israel has transgressed Your law and turned away, refusing to obey Your voice; so the oath and the curse written in the Law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, because we have sinned against You.
12 UST You said that these things would happen to us and our rulers, and you have done just what you said. You made a great disaster happen to us. No other city in the world has experienced something like what has happened to Jerusalem. BSB BSB: You have carried out the words spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us a great disaster. For under all of heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.
13 UST You have made this great disaster happen to us just as Moses wrote in the law. Even so, we have not tried to make you, our God, treat us favorably again. We have not stopped committing sins. We have not recognized that you tell us the right way to live. BSB BSB: Just as it is written in the Law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquities and giving attention to Your truth.
14 UST Because we did not obey what you told us, it was right for you, our God, to punish us as you did. You were ready to cause this disaster, and you made it happen to us when we deserved it. BSB BSB: Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it upon us. For the LORD our God is righteous in all He does; yet we have not obeyed His voice.
15 UST Now here is my request. Lord our God, you rescued us Israelites from slavery in Egypt by your great power. As a result, you have had a great reputation ever since then. But we still sinned against you by doing wicked things. BSB BSB: Now, O Lord our God, who brought Your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who made for Yourself a name renowned to this day, we have sinned; we have acted wickedly.
16 UST Lord, just as you have delivered us in the past, I ask you now to stop being so very angry with the people of Jerusalem. That is the city where you chose to be present in a special way in your temple on Mount Zion. I ask this because the people of other nations are saying bad things about Jerusalem and us Israelites. They are doing that because you have punished us for the sins that we and our ancestors committed. BSB BSB: O Lord, in keeping with all Your righteous acts, I pray that Your anger and wrath may turn away from Your city Jerusalem, Your holy mountain; for because of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people are a reproach to all around us.
17 UST But now, our God, please do what I, your servant, am earnestly asking you to do. For the sake of your own reputation, please regard favorably your temple, which our enemies have ruined. BSB BSB: So now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, O Lord, cause Your face to shine upon Your desolate sanctuary.
18 UST My God, please listen to my prayer and do what I ask. Please consider carefully that Jerusalem, the city that belongs to you in a special way, is in ruins. I am not pleading with you to help us because we are good people and deserve that. I am asking you to help us because you are very merciful. BSB BSB: Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.
19 UST Lord, please listen to me! Lord, please forgive us! Lord, please do what I am asking you to do! Jerusalem belongs to you in a special way, and so do we Israelites. So please help us quickly, my God, for the sake of your own reputation.” BSB BSB: O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name.”
Gabriel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks 20 UST I was praying and confessing the sins that I and my fellow Israelites had committed. I was pleading with Yahweh my God on behalf of Jerusalem, the place where he was present in a special way in his temple on Mount Zion. While I was still praying, Gabriel, the angel whom I had seen in my previous vision, came flying rapidly to me. He came at the time in the evening when the priests offered a sacrifice each day. BSB BSB: While I was speaking, praying, confessing my sin and that of my people Israel, and presenting my petition before the LORD my God concerning His holy mountain—
22 UST By speaking with me, he enabled me to understand{ what Yahweh had told Jeremiah about Jerusalem}. He told me,“Daniel, I have come to enable you to understand. BSB BSB: He instructed me and spoke with me, saying: “O Daniel, I have come now to give you insight and understanding.
23 UST When you first started to plead with Yahweh, he gave me a message for you. He loves you very much, so he sent me to you with this message. So please understand what I tell you and understand why I have appeared to you. BSB BSB: At the beginning of your petitions, an answer went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are highly precious. So consider the message and understand the vision:
25 UST I want you to understand this well. A king will command people to rebuild Jerusalem. When they rebuild it, it will have a large public plaza, and it will have a ditch around it to protect it. It will be a dangerous time. After that, there will be seven sets of seven time periods and then sixty- two more sets of seven time periods. Then a leader will come whom God will have chosen. BSB BSB: Know and understand this: From the issuance of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Messiah, the Prince, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of distress.
26 UST But after those sixty- two sets of seven time periods, he will die, so he will no longer be the ruler. Instead, another ruler will come, and his army will destroy the city{ of Jerusalem} and the temple. It will be as if a flood has destroyed it. There will be war continually. Yahweh has determined that armies will destroy many things. BSB BSB: Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and will have nothing. Then the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood, and until the end there will be war; desolations have been decreed.
27 UST That ruler will make an agreement with many people that he will firmly promise to keep for seven time periods. But halfway through that time, he will stop Yahweh’ s priests from offering sacrifices to him. He will put something disgusting in the temple that makes it unclean. It will be there until Yahweh finally punishes the ruler who made the temple unclean. That is what Yahweh has determined to do.” BSB BSB: And he will confirm a covenant with many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of the temple will come the abomination that causes desolation, until the decreed destruction is poured out upon him.”
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