Let thine ear now be attentive, and thine eyes open, to hear the prayer of thy servant, which I pray before thee at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel thy servants, confessing the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against thee: both I and my father's house have sinned.

We have acted very perversely against thee, and have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances that thou commandedst thy servant Moses.

but if ye return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

And I said to the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.

And I answered them, and said to them, The God of the heavens, he will prosper us, and we his servants will arise and build; but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial in Jerusalem.

And cover not their iniquity, and let not their sin be blotted out from before thee; for they have provoked the builders.

And there were that said, We have had to pledge our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses, that we might procure corn in the dearth.

And there were that said, We have borrowed money for the king's tribute upon our fields and vineyards;

yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children; and behold, we must bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage already; neither is it in the power of our hand to redeem them, for other men have our fields and our vineyards.

And I said to them, We, according to our ability, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, who were sold to the nations; and will ye even sell your brethren? or shall they be sold unto us? And they were silent and found no answer.

Restore, I pray you, to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive-gardens, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine and the oil, that ye have exacted of them.

Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor.

Remember for me, my God, for good, all that I have done for this people.

For they all would have made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be slackened from the work, that it be not carried out. Now therefore strengthen my hands!

Therefore was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have wherewith to spread an evil report, that they might reproach me.

My God, remember Tobijah and Sanballat according to these their works, and also the prophetess Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets who would have put me in fear.

But thou art just in all that is come upon us; for thou hast acted according to truth, and we have done wickedly.

And our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers, have not performed thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them.

And they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land that thou didst set before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.

And it yieldeth much increase unto the kings whom thou hast set over us because of our sins: and they have dominion over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure; and we are in great distress.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds which I have done for the house of my God, and for the charges thereof!