Chapters 9,10,11.

These chapters are spent on confessing and reconnecting.

Mourning for time lost; fasting, sackcloth and ashes. Praise for deliverence.

A covenant made and more numbers.

After I returned to God I went through one of those times. What I had missed, where I had strayed. Not only that, but even the consequences of what I had done would stay with me until "til death us do part".

It wasn't until I understood that (while the "away time" is not erased), God deals with us where we are now. If we are constantly looking backward, we will miss what is ahead.

And there was a lot that was ahead.

The Jews confessed the sins of their fathers. We are not guilty of the sins of our fathers and (while there is generational learning by modeling) there is no generational curse. But we do learn from those who model for us and if we can look at the mistakes made by those who went before, perhaps we can avoid some of our own.

Having examined their fathers, the Jews put their name to a commitment/covenant and outlined what their obligations would be.

When we turn to Christ, we enter into the New Covenant - Christ yoke is easy and His burden is light.  And yet, not so light.  We turn away from the Law, to fall under the "law of love".  And that is not always an easy thing.

Do we fail?  We all do, at some point or another.  It does us good to remember that.