1. In the first year of Darius, son of
Akhshirush,* from the seed of the Medes, who ruled in the Kingdom of the
Chaldeans.
2. In the first year of his kingdom, I, Daniel, counted
in the Scriptures the number of years to ascertain* the Lord's revelation,
as the Prophet Jeremiah had spoken regarding the end of the destruction of
Jerusalem at seventy years.
3. And I raised my face* before the Lord God* to beg on
my knees* through searching and fasting; in sackcloth and with ashes.
4. And I prayed on my knees before my Lord and my God,*
and I confessed and said, I beg you, O, Lord God, great and almighty, the
guardian of covenants and blessings for those who love* Him and those who
guard* his commandments.
5. We have sinned and have been foolish, we have been
depraved and rebellious, and we have strayed from your commandments and
your judgments.
6. And we did not heed the prophets who spoke in your
name, regarding our kings and governors, regarding our ancestors and all
the people of the earth.
7. For yours, O, Lord, is the victory* but ours is the
shame-faced reality of our daily life,* to the Jewish men and women,*
to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israelites* near and
far, that are in every place on earth, where you scattered them, because of
their abominations, with which they acted against you.
8. O, Lord, ours are the shameful faces, and those of
our kings, governors and ancestors, as they sinned against you.
9. Nevertheless, you are the Lord God against whom we
rebelled.
10. And we did not hear the voice of our Lord God, so as
to walk by his Laws, that He placed before us, through the hand of his
servants, the prophets.
11. And all Israel ignored* your Laws, they strayed and
did not hear your voice, and they brought against themselves the curses
and oaths that were written of in the Law of Moses, the Servant of God,
upon those that sinned before him.
12. And he upheld the words that he spoke against us and
against the judgments that they decreed, that brought against us the great
evil, an evil unlike any that was brought against us under heaven, as that
which was brought against Jerusalem.
13. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil
befell us and we did not go down on our knees* before our Lord God, so as
to repent from our abomination; as we foolishly abandoned your faith, and
the Lord saw the evil that befell us.
14. For He is holy, our Lord God, in all the works that He performs,
but we did not hear his voice.
15. Now then, our Lord God, who liberated your people from the land of
Egypt with a mighty hand and who made a name for yourself as always,*
despite the fact that we sinned and acted in an outrageous manner.*
16. O, Lord, like all your righteous acts that you performed upon us,
let your anger and wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem and your holy
mountain, for because of our sins and the abomination of our ancestors
your people were scattered in every country, and Jerusalem became the
spoil of all the nations.
17. Now hear, O, God the prayer or your servant and of our
soul-searching and shed your light upon your sanctuary that lies in ruin,*
for your name is the Lord.
18. Allow your ear to listen, O, my God; open your eyes and see our
ruins and curses and the city over which your name has been invoked, for
it was not for the sake of our righteousness that we endured and prayed
down on our knees before you except your abundant mercies.
19. The Lord hears, the Lord hallows, the Lord declares and acts
without delay, because your name is my God; that is why your name is
invoked over your city and over your people.
20. And as I prayed on my knees and confessed my unfulfilled
responsibilities, those of of my people Israel, and as I cast my
soul-searching before the Lord God, upon the holy mountain of my God;
21. And as I was speaking through prayer -- Gabriel, the man I had seen
in the old vision, flew out* and shot from heaven; he approached me at the
time of the evening offering.*
22. He came and spoke to me, and he said to me, "Daniel, I now
came to teach you, so you could understand.
23. "As soon as you began to pray, your prayer was answered,* and
I came to show you, because you are very eager to know;* let this
revelation bring you understanding and let this vision teach you.
24. "Seventy seventies shall rest upon your nation and upon the
town of your reverence,* so as the obligations may be concluded and the
sins may be curtailed, so that the abominations shall be abandoned, and
that they may usher in the eternal righteousness, such as the vision and
the prophesies* may be fulfilled, and to the Anointed One we may commit
our blessings.
25. "And you shall know and understand, from the emergence of the
Manifestation, who shall return and rebuild Jerusalem, and the coming of
the Messiah King, seventy sevens and seventy sixties and two; he shall
return and rebuild Jerusalem, its streets and gateways, to the end of the
season.
26. "And after the seventy sixties and two, the Messiah shall be
killed, and [Jerusalem] shall not have him, and the holy city shall be devastated,
together with the next king,* and its end shall be evacuation, and until
the end of the war there shall be killing and desolation.*
27. "And the Covenant shall be deepened for many, [a period of]
seven and half [the period] of seven, sacrifices and offerings shall cease
to be performed,* and over the wings of evil* there shall follow the
desolation,* until the killings shall cease,* and [the dead shall] rest*
upon the desolation.*
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