Hey everybody, I'm Tim McEy and this is my podcast Exploring My Strange Bible.

I am a card carrying Bible history and language nerd who thinks that Jesus of Nazareth is

utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have.

On this podcast I'm putting together the last ten years worth of lectures and sermons

where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites

us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith.

And I hope this can be helpful for you too.

I also help start this thing called the Bible Project.

We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology.

You can find those resources at thebibelproject.com.

With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week.

We're going to consider today Daniel chapter 9, one of the most beautiful prayers of confession in the whole Bible.

The book of Daniel, this whole book, this whole series, what we've been focusing on.

The main point of the book is telling the story of these four Israelites, one in particular, especially named Daniel.

And these are Israelites.

You'll remember they've been exiled from their home, from Jerusalem.

They've been taken into captivity to a faraway land and they're struggling now for the rest of their lives to be faithful to their true identity and to their God in a foreign land.

And so every week we've been exploring how this book speaks to God's people anytime, anywhere, where God's people are a minority.

Where there's a trying to be faithful to your God, lands you in the position of a minority.

And everyone else around you thinks that you're stupid and that what you believe is stupid and that your way of life is stupid.

And it's difficult. It's hard to live like that. Intention.

And what Daniel has showed us in his friends, this is interesting because they were recruited to serve in Babylon.

...