Hear my prayer, O Lord; do not be deaf to my cry or ignore my weeping. For I am a wayfarer before you, a nomad like all my ancestors. | Hear my prayer, O Lord! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. For I am your guest— a traveler passing through, as my ancestors were before me. |
May the Lord, our God, be with us, just as he was with our fathers; may he not leave us or abandon us. | May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us or abandon us. |
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Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets of that time proclaimed. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Forsake your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they refused to listen or to pay attention to me, says the Lord. | Don’t be like your ancestors who would not listen or pay attention when the earlier prophets said to them, ‘This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: Turn from your evil ways, and stop all your evil practices.’ |
For you are aware that you were ransomed from your futile way of life inherited from your ancestors not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. | For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. |
To you, O God of my fathers, I offer thanks and praise because you have given me wisdom and power. Now you have made known to me what we asked of you; you have revealed to us the king’s dream. | I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded. |
He brought you low, allowing you to suffer from hunger. He then fed you with manna, something with which your fathers were not familiar, so that you might come to know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord. | Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. |
If it seems wrong to you to serve the Lord, then today you must choose whom you will serve, whether it be the gods that your fathers served on the other side of the river, or the gods of the Amorites who dwell in the land. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. | But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord. |
However, if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you are upright in your dealings with your neighbor; if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you do not shed innocent blood in this place; and if you do not follow other gods and thereby cause your own destruction, then I will allow you to live in this place, in the land that I gave as a permanent gift to your fathers long ago. | But I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows; only if you stop your murdering; and only if you stop harming yourselves by worshiping idols. Then I will let you stay in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever. |