Our kings and leaders and priests and fathers did not obey Your law or listen to Your commandments and warnings that You gave them.
Parallel translations
- WEB Also our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law, nor listened to your commandments and your testimonies with which you testified against them.
- KJV Neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.
- NKJV Neither our kings nor our princes, Our priests nor our fathers, Have kept Your law, Nor heeded Your commandments and Your testimonies, With which You testified against them.
- NASB “For our kings, our leaders, our priests, and our fathers have not kept Your Law Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.
- NLT Our kings, leaders, priests, and ancestors did not obey your Law or listen to the warnings in your commands and laws.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They admit their kings, princes, priests, and fathers all failed to keep God's law and warnings. It matters because the confession spans every level of leadership and society.
Overview
No class is exempt: rulers, priests, and ancestors alike disregarded God's law and testimonies. The sin was comprehensive, implicating leaders especially. This thorough confession underscores that all have sinned and fallen short (Romans 3:23), and that the only sufficient leader, priest, and king is Christ, who perfectly obeyed God's law.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 5
- Jer 29:19I will do this because they have not listened to My words, declares the LORD, which I sent to them again and again through My servants the prophets. And neither have you exiles listened, declares the LORD.”
- 2 Kgs 17:13Yet through all His prophets and seers, the LORD warned Israel and Judah, saying, “Turn from your wicked ways and keep My commandments and statutes, according to the entire Law that I commanded your fathers and delivered to you through My servants the prophets.”
- Deut 31:21And when many troubles and afflictions have come upon them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten from the lips of their descendants. For I know their inclination, even before I bring them into the land that I swore to give them.”
- Neh 9:30You were patient with them for many years, and Your Spirit admonished them through Your prophets. Yet they would not listen, so You gave them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.
- 2 Kgs 17:15They rejected His statutes and the covenant He had made with their fathers, as well as the decrees He had given them. They pursued worthless idols and themselves became worthless, going after the surrounding nations that the LORD had commanded them not to imitate.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The rebuilt walls and renewed covenant community foreshadow the greater builder who gathers and secures a people for God, the one who declares 'I will build my church.'
How Nehemiah 9:34 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.