O Jehovah, I pray You, let now Your ear be open to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name. And I pray You, bless Your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. (For I was the king's cupbearer.)

And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was very much afraid.

But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us. And they said, What is this that you do? Will you rebel against the king?

And also I, my brothers and my servants, might take from them silver and grain. Please let us leave this lending at interest.

And they said, We will restore, and will ask nothing from them. So we will do as you say. Then I called the priests and took an oath from them that they should do according to this promise.

Also I shook my lap and said, So let God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, who does not keep this promise, even may he be shaken out this way and emptied. And all the congregation said, amen, and praised Jehovah. And the people did according to this promise.

But the former governors that had been before me were too heavy upon the people, and had taken bread and wine from them, besides forty shekels of silver. Yes, even their servants bore rule over the people. But I did not do this, because of the fear of God.

And I also kept on in the work of this wall. Nor did we buy any land. And all my servants gathered there to the work.

And that which was prepared daily was one ox and six choice sheep; and birds were prepared; and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine. Yet for all this I did not seek the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.

Think upon me, my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people.

And they sent to me four times in this way. And I answered them in the same way.

It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says it, that you and the Jews are thinking of rebelling, for this reason you build the wall, so that you may be their king, according to these words.

And, behold, I understood that God had not sent him, but that he said this prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.

And it happened when all our enemies heard, and all the nations around us saw, they were very much lowered in their own eyes. For they saw that this work was done by our God.

And Nehemiah, the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to Jehovah your God. Do not mourn or weep. For all the people wept when they heard the words of the Law.

Then he said to them, Go eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared. For this day is holy to our LORD. And do not be sorry, for the joy of Jehovah is your strength.

And in the twenty-fourth day of this month, the sons of Israel were gathered with fasting and with sackcloth, and with earth upon them.

Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt, and had worked great blasphemies,

And now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the fearful God, who keeps covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble that has come upon us, on our kings, on our rulers, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all Your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day, seem little before You.

And because of all this we are cutting a sure covenant, and write it, and our princes, Levites, and priests are sealing it.

And before this, Eliashib the priest, who was set over the rooms of the house of our God, and who was related to Tobiah.

But in all this time I was not at Jerusalem. For in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon, I came to the king. And after some days I was given permission to leave the king.

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

And I contended with the nobles of Judah and said to them, What evil thing is this that you do, and defile the Sabbath day?

Did not your fathers do this, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us and upon this city? Yet you bring more wrath upon Israel by defiling the Sabbath.

And I commanded the Levites that they should cleanse themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to sanctify the Sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of Your mercy.

Shall we then listen to you, to do all this great evil, to sin against our God in living with foreign women?