and one of my brothers, Hanani, came with some men from Judah. I asked them about the Jews who had escaped the captivity and about Jerusalem.

I came to the governors of [the province] Beyond the River, and I gave them the letters of the king. Then the king sent troop commanders and horses with me.

I came to Jerusalem and was there for three days.

So I went up by the valley during the night and was examining the wall. Then I returned and came to the Valley Gate and returned.

When the Jews who lived beside them came, they said to us ten times, "From all of the places where they live, [they will come up] against us."

So we labored at the work, and half of them were holding the spears from dawn until the stars came out.

One hundred and fifty men, prefects and Jews, and those who came to us from the nations around us, [were] at my table.

Then my God put into my heart to assemble the nobles, the prefects, and the people to be enrolled. I found the book of the genealogy of those who first came back, and I found [this] written upon it:

These are the people of the province who came up from captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried into exile. They returned to Jerusalem and to Judah, each one to his city.

These came with Zerubbabel, Joshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel:

These were the ones who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer, but they were not able to prove their ancestral houses or their descent, whether they were from Israel:

So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel settled in their cities. When the seventh month came, the {Israelites} [were] in their cities.

Then you came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven and gave them right judgments and true teachings, good regulations and commandments.

These [are] the priests and the Levites who came up with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua: Seraiah, Jeremiah, Ezra,

So I came to Jerusalem. And I came to learn of the wrong that Eliashib had done for Tobiah by making him a room in the courtyard of the house of God.

And then I came to learn that the food of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, the doers of the work, had gone back each to his field.