1. In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the offspring of the Medes, who ruled over the kingdom of the Chaldeans,
2. in year one of his reign, I, Daniel, understood in the books the number of the years, concerning the word of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would be completed in seventy years.
3. And I set my face to the Lord, my God, to ask and make supplication with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.
4. And I prayed to the Lord, my God, and I confessed, and I said, "I beg you, O Lord God, great and terrible, preserving the covenant and mercy for those who love you and keep your commandments.
5. We have sinned, we have committed iniquity, we acted impiously and have withdrawn, and we have turned aside from your commandments as well as your judgments.
6. We have not obeyed your servants, the prophets, who have spoken in your name to our kings, our leaders, our fathers, and all the people of the land.
7. To you, O Lord, is justice, but to us is confusion of face, just as it is on this day for the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and all Israel, for those who are near and those who are far off, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of their iniquities by which they have sinned against you.
8. O Lord, to us belongs confusion of face: to our kings, our leaders, and our fathers, who have sinned.
9. But to you, the Lord our God, is mercy and atonement, for we have withdrawn from you,
10. and we have not listened to the voice of the Lord, our God, so as to walk in his law, which he established for us by his servants, the prophets.
11. And all Israel has transgressed your law and has turned away, not listening to your voice, and so the condemnation and the curse, which is written in the book of Moses, servant of God, has rained down upon us, because we have sinned against him.
12. And he has fulfilled his words, which he has spoken over us and over our leaders who judged us, that he would lead over us a great evil, such as has never before existed under all of heaven, according to what has been done in Jerusalem.
13. Just as it has been written in the law of Moses, all this evil has come upon us, and we did not entreat your face, O Lord our God, so that we might turn back from our iniquities and consider your truth.