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Daniel 9

9 Darius son of Ahasuerus, who was a Mede, became the next ruler of the Chaldean kingdom. 2 During the first year that Darius was the king, I, Daniel, was studying our holy books. I saw that Yahweh had told the prophet Jeremiah how long Jerusalem would be in a bad condition. It would be for seventy years. 3 After I read that, I resolved to ask the Lord God to help us. I prayed to him very earnestly. To show how sorry I was for our sins, I ate little food, I wore rough cloth, and I put ashes on my head.

4 As I prayed to Yahweh my God, I admitted that we Israelites had sinned. I said, “Oh Lord, you are the powerful God whom everyone should respect! You keep your promises and you faithfully love people who love you and obey your laws. 5 But we Israelites have sinned against you. We have done things that are wrong. We have done wicked things and rebelled against you. We have disobeyed many of your laws. 6 You sent prophets to bring messages from you to our kings, our other rulers, and our ancestors. They spoke those messages to all the Israelite people. But we did not obey what they told us to do. 7 Lord, you were right to punish us for sinning so seriously against you. But as a result, we are now in a shameful condition. This is true of the Israelites who still live in Jerusalem and other places in Judea. It is also true of the Israelites whose enemies you allowed to take away to other countries. Some of those countries are near Israel, and others are farther away. 8 Yahweh, we have sinned against you, and so we and our kings, our other rulers, and our ancestors are in a shameful condition. 9 I ask you, our Lord and God, to forgive us and treat us kindly, even though we have rebelled against you. 10 You sent your prophets to speak to us directly and tell us to obey your laws. But we did not obey what you, our God, said to us through them. 11 All of us Israelite people have failed to do what your law requires and have done other things instead. We have not obeyed what you told us to do. We have sinned against you, and as a result, you have made very bad things happen to us. You swore that you would do that if we sinned so badly. Your servant Moses wrote this in the law. 12 You said that these things would happen to us and our rulers, and you have done just what you said. You made a great disaster happen to us. No other city in the world has experienced something like what has happened to Jerusalem. 13 You have made this great disaster happen to us just as Moses wrote in the law. Even so, we have not tried to make you, our God, treat us favorably again. We have not stopped committing sins. We have not recognized that you tell us the right way to live. 14 Because we did not obey what you told us, it was right for you, our God, to punish us as you did. You were ready to cause this disaster, and you made it happen to us when we deserved it. 15 Now here is my request. Lord our God, you rescued us Israelites from slavery in Egypt by your great power. As a result, you have had a great reputation ever since then. But we still sinned against you by doing wicked things. 16 Lord, just as you have delivered us in the past, I ask you now to stop being so very angry with the people of Jerusalem. That is the city where you chose to be present in a special way in your temple on Mount Zion. I ask this because the people of other nations are saying bad things about Jerusalem and us Israelites. They are doing that because you have punished us for the sins that we and our ancestors committed. 17 But now, our God, please do what I, your servant, am earnestly asking you to do. For the sake of your own reputation, please regard favorably your temple, which our enemies have ruined. 18 My God, please listen to my prayer and do what I ask. Please consider carefully that Jerusalem, the city that belongs to you in a special way, is in ruins. I am not pleading with you to help us because we are good people and deserve that. I am asking you to help us because you are very merciful. 19 Lord, please listen to me! Lord, please forgive us! Lord, please do what I am asking you to do! Jerusalem belongs to you in a special way, and so do we Israelites. So please help us quickly, my God, for the sake of your own reputation.”

20 I was praying and confessing the sins that I and my fellow Israelites had committed. I was pleading with Yahweh my God on behalf of Jerusalem, the place where he was present in a special way in his temple on Mount Zion. 21 While I was still praying, Gabriel, the angel whom I had seen in my previous vision, came flying rapidly to me. He came at the time in the evening when the priests offered a sacrifice each day. 22 By speaking with me, he enabled me to understand what Yahweh had told Jeremiah about Jerusalem. He told me, “Daniel, I have come to enable you to understand. 23 When you first started to plead with Yahweh, he gave me a message for you. He loves you very much, so he sent me to you with this message. So please understand what I tell you and understand why I have appeared to you.

24 Yahweh has determined that there will be seventy sets of seven time periods for you Israelites and for the holy city of Jerusalem. He will stop you from rebelling against him and keep you from committing more sins. He will forgive the wrong things you have done, and he will enable you always to do what is right. He will make the things happen that he showed to his prophets in visions. He will make his temple a sacred place again.

25 I want you to understand this well. A king will command people to rebuild Jerusalem. When they rebuild it, it will have a large public plaza, and it will have a ditch around it to protect it. It will be a dangerous time. After that, there will be seven sets of seven time periods and then sixty-two more sets of seven time periods. Then a leader will come whom God will have chosen. 26 But after those sixty-two sets of seven time periods, he will die, so he will no longer be the ruler. Instead, another ruler will come, and his army will destroy the city of Jerusalem and the temple. It will be as if a flood has destroyed it. There will be war continually. Yahweh has determined that armies will destroy many things. 27 That ruler will make an agreement with many people that he will firmly promise to keep for seven time periods. But halfway through that time, he will stop Yahweh’s priests from offering sacrifices to him. He will put something disgusting in the temple that makes it unclean. It will be there until Yahweh finally punishes the ruler who made the temple unclean. That is what Yahweh has determined to do.”

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