Nehemiah 9:34
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. 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.
The verse is part of the national confession at Jerusalem when Ezra stood on a raised wooden platform in the street and held open the Book of the Law of Moses before a large assembly of attentive men amid partly ruined buildings. There the law was read distinctly and explained so the people could understand it, and hearing it prompted their confession. That setting involved Israel's sin in the corruption of the Hebrew language through intermarriage with other nations.
It confesses that Israel's kings, princes, priests, and fathers or ancestors did not keep God's law, which is the Ten Commandments, nor heed His commandments and testimonies. The testimonies were warnings by which God testified against them to turn them back to His law. Their disobedience continued despite His goodness and His works for Israel recounted in the chapter.
Their turning away from God separated them from Him and brought them under the control of heathen nations. So the distress and punishment they suffered was just, as the people themselves acknowledged. Ezra and Nehemiah humbled themselves, confessed these sins as their own as well as the people's and pleaded for pardon as if they themselves were the offenders, and the people pledged themselves to obey God's law. That occasion stands as an example of the deep repentance and return to God that John expected his own preaching to bring. Their history resembles that of Seventh-day Adventists in that people richly favored by God did not appreciate His gifts or give Him the glory due His name, yet He did not wholly forsake them.