At the same time I told the people, "Let's have everyone sleep at night inside Jerusalem with their servants, so they can guard us at night and work during the day.

Others were saying, "We're having to mortgage our fields, our vineyards, and our homes so we can buy grain during this famine."

In addition, from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah (that is, during the twelve years from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes), neither I nor my relatives relied on the provisions allotted to the governor.

They found written in the Law that the LORD had commanded through Moses that the Israelis were to live in tents during the festival scheduled for the seventh month.

You led them during the day by a pillar of cloud, and by a pillar of fire at night to provide light for them on the path they took.

In this document, I, Hacaliah's son Nehemiah, recount what occurred during the twentieth year of Artaxerxes.

It came about in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, during the month of Nissan, the king was about to drink some wine that I was preparing for him. Now I had never looked troubled in his presence.

So I went out during the night through the Valley Gate toward Dragon's Well, and from there to the Dung Gate, inspecting the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and burned by fire.

As for the people of the land who bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. We will forego planting crops, and we will cancel debts during every seventh year."

When Eliashib, Joiada, Johanan, and Jaddua were serving, the descendants of Levi were recorded as heads of their ancestors' houses, as were the priests during the reign of Darius the Persian.

During all of this time, I was not in Jerusalem, because I had returned to the king in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes, king of Babylon. After a while I obtained permission from the king