1. In the first year of Darius, son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who hath been made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans,
2. in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, have understood by books the number of the years, (in that a word of Jehovah hath been unto Jeremiah the prophet,) concerning the fulfilling of the wastes of Jerusalem--seventy years;
3. and I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek [by] prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes.
4. And I pray to Jehovah my God, and confess, and say: `I beseech Thee, O Lord God, the great and the fearful, keeping the covenant and the kindness to those loving Him, and to those keeping His commands;
5. we have sinned, and done perversely, and done wickedly, and rebelled, to turn aside from Thy commands, and from Thy judgments: