We have dealt very corruptly against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances, which thou commanded thy servant Moses.

but if ye return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts were in the outermost part of the heavens, yet I will gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name

Now these are thy servants and thy people whom thou have redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand.

And I said to the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favor in thy sight, that thou would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' sepulchers, that I may build it.

Then I answered them, and said to them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us. Therefore we his servants will arise and build, but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.

and do not cover their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee, for they have provoked [thee] to anger before the builders.

There were also who said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute [upon] our fields and our vineyards.

And I said to them, According to our ability we have redeemed our brothers the Jews, who were sold to the nations, and would ye even sell your brothers, and should they be sold to us? Then they were silent, and found not a word.

Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, [that is], twelve years, I and my brothers have not eaten the bre

Remember to me, O my God, for good, all that I have done for this people.

And thou have also appointed prophets to preach of thee at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah. And now it shall be reported to the king according to these words. Come now therefore, and let us take counsel together.

For they all would have made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work that it not be done. But now, [O God], strengthen thou my hands.

For this cause he was hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me.

Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works, and also the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, who would have put me in fear.

Thou are LORD, even thou alone, thou have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are on it, the seas and all that is in them, and thou preserve them all. And the host of heaven worshi

and found his heart faithful before thee, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, and the Perizzite, and the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it to his seed, and have performed

However thou are just in all that has come upon us, for thou have dealt truly, but we have done wickedly,

neither have our kings, our rulers, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened to thy commandments and thy testimonies with which thou testified against them.

For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gave them, and in the large and fat land which thou gave before them, neither did they turn from their wicked works.

And it yields much increase to the kings whom thou have set over us because of our sins. Also they have power over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and we are in great distress.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the observances of it.

Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, and the covenant of the priesthood, and of the Levites.