⁵ Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant,^(A) you will be my own possession^(B) out of all the peoples, although the whole earth is mine, ⁶ and you will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.’^(C) These are the words that you are to say to the Israelites.”

²⁶ I prayed to the Lord:

Lord God, do not annihilate your people, your inheritance, whom you redeemed^(A) through your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. ²⁷ Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Disregard this people’s stubbornness, and their wickedness and sin. ²⁸ Otherwise, those in the land you brought us from will say, ‘Because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them into the land he had promised them, and because he hated them, he brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’^{(B) 29} But they are your people, your inheritance, whom you brought out by your great power and outstretched arm.^(C)