Moreover I said to the king, "If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah;

Our adversaries said, "They shall not know, neither see, until we come into their midst, and kill them, and cause the work to cease."

So we worked in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning until the stars appeared.

I said to them, "Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot; and while they stand guard, let them shut the doors, and you bar them: and appoint watches of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, everyone in his watch, with everyone near his house."

The governor said to them, that they should not eat of the most holy things, until there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim.

He read therein before the broad place that was before the water gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women, and of those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

The sons of Levi, heads of ancestral houses, were written in the book of the chronicles, even until the days of Johanan the son of Eliashib.

It came to pass that, when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut, and commanded that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. I set some of my servants over the gates, that no burden should be brought in on the Sabbath day.