18. even when they made a cast image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your god who brought you up from Egypt!’ or when they committed great blasphemies.
19. “Yet in Your great compassion You did not abandon them in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud by day did not depart from above them, guiding them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, illuminating the way they should go.
20. You also gave Your good Ruach to teach them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouth and You gave them water for their thirst.
21. For forty years You sustained them in the desert: they lacked nothing, their garments did not wear out and their feet did not swell.
22. “You gave them kingdoms and peoples and You allotted them their boundaries of the land. They possessed the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the country of Og king of Bashan.
23. You multiplied their descendants like the stars of heaven, and You brought them into the land that You told their ancestors to enter and inherit.
24. So the children went in and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hands, along with their kings and the peoples of the land to deal with them as they pleased.
25. They captured fortified cities and fertile land. They took possession of houses full of every good thing—hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, and an abundance of fruit trees. They ate and were satisfied, and grew fat. They enjoyed Your great goodness.
26. “Nonetheless they became contentious and rebelled against You. They cast Your Torah behind their back. They killed Your prophets who warned them to return to You; they committed appalling blasphemies.
27. Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies who oppressed them. But in the time of their distress, they cried out to You and You heard from heaven. According to Your great compassion, You gave them deliverers, who rescued them out of the hand of their enemies.
28. “But as soon as they were at rest, they returned to doing evil before You. Therefore You abandoned them into the hand of their enemies who ruled over them. When they repented and cried out to You, You heard from heaven, and according to Your compassion You delivered them many times.
29. “You warned them in order to turn them back to Your Torah, but they became insolent and disobeyed Your mitzvot. They sinned against Your ordinances—those by which if a man does them he will live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen.
30. You bore with them for many years and admonished them by Your Ruach through the hand of Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You handed them over to the peoples of the lands.
31. Nevertheless, in Your great compassion, You did not put an end to them or abandon them, for You are a gracious and compassionate God.
32. “So now, our God—the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps covenant and mercy—do not let all the hardship that has befallen us seem insignificant to you—our kings, our leaders, our kohanim, our prophets, our ancestors and all Your people, from the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.
33. You are righteous in all that has come upon us. For You have acted faithfully while we have done wickedly.