Bible in a Year.

On day 277, Nehemiah 9 records the collective confession of sin and the acknowledgment of God's faithfulness. Esther 5:6-7 demonstrates her boldness in approaching the king, exemplifying courage and prudence. Proverbs 21:9-12 offers advice on harmony in the home, righteousness, and the protection of the righteous, strengthening practical life with divine wisdom.

1. And in the four and twentieth day of the month the children of Israel came together with fasting and with sackcloth, and earth upon them.

2. And the seed of the children of Israel separated themselves from every stranger: and they stood, and confessed their sins, and the iniquities of their fathers.

3. And they rose up to stand: and they read in the book of the law of the Lord their God, four times in the day, and four times they confessed, and adored the Lord their God.

4. And there stood up upon the seep of the Levites, Josue, and Bani, and Cedmihel, Sabania, Bonni, Sarebias, Bani, and Chanani: and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God.

5. And the Levites Josue and Cedmihel, Bonni, Hasebnia, Serebia, Oduia, Sebnia, and Phathahia, said: Arise, bless the Lord your God from eternity to eternity: and blessed be the high name of thy glory with all blessing and praise.

6. Thou thyself, O Lord alone, thou hast made heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and all the host thereof: the earth and all things that are in it: the seas and all that are therein: and thou givest life to all these things, and the host of heaven adoreth thee.

7. Thou, O Lord God, art he who chosest Abram, and broughtest him forth out of the fire of the Chaldeans, and gavest him the name of Abraham.

8. And thou didst find his heart faithful before thee: and thou madest a covenant with him, to give him the land of the Chanaanite, of the Hethite, and of the Amorrhite, and of the Pherezite, and of the Jebusite, and of the Gergezite, to give it to his seed: and thou hast fulfilled thy words, because thou art just.

9. And thou sawest the affliction of our fathers in Egypt: and thou didst hear their cry by the Red Sea.

10. And thou shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharao, and upon all his servants, and upon the people of his land : for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them: and thou madest thyself a name, as it is at this day.

11. And thou didst divide the sea before them, and they passed through the midst of the sea on dry land: but their persecutors thou threwest into the depth, as a stone into mighty waters.

12. And in a pillar of a cloud thou wast their leader by day, and in a pillar of Are by night, that they might see the way by which they went.

13. Thou camest down also to mount Sinai, and didst speak with them from heaven, and thou gavest them right judgments, and the law of truth, ceremonies, and good precepts.

14. Thou madest known to them thy holy sabbath, and didst prescribe to them commandments, and ceremonies, and the law by the hand of Moses thy servant.

15. And thou gavest them bread from heaven in their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst, and thou saidst to them that they should go in, and possess the land, upon which thou hadst lifted up thy hand to give it them.

16. But they and our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks and hearkened not to thy commandments.

17. And they would not hear, and they remembered not thy wonders which thou hadst done for them. And they hardened their necks, and gave the head to return to their bondage, as it were by contention. But thou, a forgiving God, gracious, and merciful, longsuffering, and full of compassion, didst not forsake them.

18. Yea when they had made also to themselves a molten calf, and had said: This is thy God, that brought thee out of Egypt: and hail committed great blasphemies :

19. Yet thou, in thy many mercies, didst not leave them in the desert: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way, and the pillar of fire by night to shew them the way by which they should go.

20. And thou gavest them thy good Spirit to teach them, and thy manna thou didst not withhold from their mouth, and thou gavest them water for their thirst.

21. Forty years didst thou feed them in the desert, and nothing was wanting to them: their garments did not grow old, and their feet were not worn.

22. And thou gavest them kingdoms, and nations, and didst divide lots for them: and they possessed the land of Sehon, and the land of the king of Hesebon, and the land of Og king of Basan.

23. And thou didst multiply their children as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them to the land concerning which thou hadst said to their fathers, that they should go in and possess it.

24. And the children came and possessed the land, and thou didst humble before them the inhabitants of the land, the Chanaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as it pleased them.

25. And they took strong cities and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods: cisterns made by others, vine- yards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: and they ate, and were filled, and became fat, and abounded with de- light in thy great goodness.

26. But they provoked thee to wrath, and departed from thee, and threw thy law behind their backs: and they killed thy prophets, who admonished them earnestly to return to thee : and they were guilty of great blasphemies.

27. And thou gavest them into the hands of their enemies, and they afflicted them. And in the time of their tribulation they cried to thee, and thou heardest from heaven, and according to the multitude of thy tender mercies thou gavest them saviours, to save them from the hands of their enemies.

28. But after they had rest, they returned to do evil in thy sight : and thou leftest them in the hand of their enemies, and they had dominion over them. Then they returned, and cried to thee: and thou heardest from heaven, and deliveredst them many times in thy mercies.

29. And thou didst admonish them to re turn to thy law. But they dealt proudly, and hearkened not to thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them: and they withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.

30. And thou didst forbear with them for many years, and didst testify against them by thy spirit by the hand of thy prophets: and they heard not, and thou didst deliver them into the hand of the people of the lands.

31. Yet in thy very many mercies thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them: because thou art a merciful and gracious God.

32. Now therefore our God, great, strong and terrible, who keepest covenant and mercy, turn not away from thy face all the labour which hath come upon us, upon our kings, and our princes, and our priests, and our prophets, and our fathers, and all the people from the days of the king of Assur, until this day.

33. And thou art just in all things that have come upon us: because thou hast done truth, but we have done wickedly.

34. Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept thy law, and have not minded thy commandments, and thy testimonies which thou hast testified among them.

35. And they have not served thee in their kingdoms, and in thy manifold goodness, which thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land, which thou deliveredst before them, nor did they return from their most wicked devices.

36. Behold we ourselves this day are bondmen: and the land, which thou gavest our fathers, to eat the bread thereof, and the good things thereof, and we ourselves are servants in it.

37. And the fruits thereof grow up for the kings, whom thou hast set over us for our sins, and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our beasts, according to their will, and we are in great tribulation.

38. and because of all this we ourselves make a covenant, and write it, and our princes, our Levites, and our priests sign it.

Chapter 6

1. That night the king passed without sleep, and he commanded the histories and chronicles of former times to be brought him. And when they were reading them before him,

2. They came to that place where it was written, how Mardochai had discovered the treason of Bagathan and Thares the eunuchs, who sought to kill king Assuerus.

3. And when the king heard this, he said: What honour and reward hath Mardochai received for this fidelity? His servants and ministers said to him: He hath received no reward at all.

4. And the king said immediately: Who is in the court? for Aman was coming in to the inner court of the king's house, to speak to the king, that he might order Mardochai to be hanged upon the gibbet which was prepared for him.

5. The servants answered: Aman standeth in the court, and the king said: Let him come in.

6. And when he was come in, he said to him: What ought to be done to the man whom the king is desirous to honour? But Aman thinking in his heart, and supposing that the king would honour no other but himself,

7. Answered: The man whom the king desireth to honour,

8. Ought to be clothed with the king's apparel, and to be set upon the horse that the king rideth upon, and to have the royal crown upon his head,

9. And let the first of the king's princes and nobles hold his horse, and going through the street of the city, proclaim before him and say: Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king hath a mind to honour.

10. And the king said to him: Make haste and take the robe and the horse, and do as thou hast spoken to Mardochai the Jew, who sitteth before the gates of the palace. Beware thou pass over any of those things which thou hast spoken.

11. So Aman took the robe and the horse, and arraying Mardochai in the street of the city, and setting him on the horse, went before him, and proclaimed: This honour is he worthy of, whom the king hath a mind to honour.

12. But Mardochai returned to the palace gate: and Aman made haste to go to his house, mourning and having his head covered:

13. And he told Zares his wife, and his friends, all that had befallen him. And the wise men whom he had in counsel, and his wife answered him: If Mardochai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou canst not resist him, but thou shalt fall in his sight.

14. As they were yet speaking, the king's eunuchs came, and compelled him to go quickly to the banquet which the queen had prepared.

Chapter 7

1. So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen.

2. And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it.

3. Then she answered: If I have found Favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.

4. For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.

5. And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?

6. And Esther said: It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy. Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and of the queen.

7. But the king being angry rose up, and went from the place of the banquet into the garden set with trees. Aman also rose up to entreat Esther the queen for his life, for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king.

8. And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face.

9. And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman's house, being fifty cubits high. And the king said to him: Hang him upon it.

10. So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king's wrath ceased.

Chapter 15

1. And he commanded her (no doubt but he was Mardochai) to go to the king, and petition for her people, and for her country.

2. Remember, (said he,) the days of thy low estate, how thou wast brought up by my hand, because Aman the second after the king hath spoken against us unto death.

3. And do thou call upon the Lord, and speak to the king for us, and deliver us from death.

4. And on the third day she laid away the garments she wore, and put on her glorious apparel.

5. And glittering in royal robes, after she had called upon God the ruler and Saviour of all, she took two maids with her,

6. And upon one of them she leaned, as if for delicateness and overmuch tenderness she were not able to bear up her own body.

7. And the other maid followed her lady, bearing up her train flowing on the ground.

8. But she with a rosy colour in her face, and with gracious and bright eyes, hid a mind full of anguish, and exceeding great fear.

9. So going in she passed through all the doors in order, and stood before the king, where he sat upon his royal throne, clothed with his royal robes, and glittering with gold, and precious stones, and he was terrible to behold.

10. And when he had lifted up his countenance, and with burning eyes had shewn the wrath of his heart, the queen sunk down, and her colour turned pale, and she rested her weary head upon her handmaid.

11. And God changed the king's spirit into mildness, and all in haste and in fear he leaped from his throne, and holding her up in his arms, till she came to herself, caressed her with these words:

12. What is the matter, Esther? I am thy brother, fear not.

13. Thou shalt not die: for this law is not made for thee, but for all others.

14. Come near then, and touch the sceptre.

15. And as she held her peace, he took the golden sceptre, and laid it upon her neck, and kissed her, and said: Why dost thou not speak to me?

16. She answered: I saw thee, my lord, as an angel of God, and my heart was troubled for fear of thy majesty.

17. For thou, my lord, art very admirable, and thy. face is full of graces.

18. And while she was speaking, she fell down again, and was almost in a swoon.

19. But the king was troubled, and all his servants comforted her.

9. It is better to sit in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling women, and in a common house.

10. The soul of the wicked desireth evil, he will not have pity on his neighbour.

11. When a pestilent man is punished, the little one will be wiser: and if he follow the wise, he will receive knowledge.

12. The just considereth seriously the house of the wicked, that he may withdraw the wicked from evil.