During the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was set before him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had never been sad in his presence,

I said to them, “Do not open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is hot, and let the doors be shut and securely fastened while the guards are on duty. Station the citizens of Jerusalem as guards, some at their posts and some at their homes.”

You are Yahweh,
the God who chose Abram
and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans,
and changed his name to Abraham.

Those whose seals were on the document were:

Nehemiah the governor, son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah,

While all this was happening, I was not in Jerusalem, because I had returned to King Artaxerxes of Babylon in the thirty-second year of his reign. It was only later that I asked the king for a leave of absence

Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or the language of one of the other peoples but could not speak Hebrew.