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

I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad when the city of my ancestors' burial site is ruined and her gates are consumed by fire?"

And Sanballat the Horonite will hear, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and it will be evil to them a great evil that a man came to seek good for the sons of Israel.

And saying to them, Ye seeing the evil which we are in it, how Jerusalem lay waste, and her gates were burnt with fire: come ye, and we will build the walls of Jerusalem, and we shall be no more a reproach.

And Sanballat the Horonite will hear, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, and they will mock to us and despise us, and say, What this word that ye do? are ye bearing rule against the king?

Next unto him repaired Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, of the goldsmiths. Next unto him also repaired Hananiah the son of one of the apothecaries, and they fortified Jerusalem unto the broad wall.

And next unto them repaired Rephaiah the son of Hur, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem.

Palal, the son of Uzai, made good the wall opposite the angle and the tower which comes out from the higher part of the king's house, by the open space of the watch. After him was Pedaiah, the son of Parosh.

Hear, O our God; for we are despised: and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of captivity:

Therefore set I in the lower places behind the wall, and on the higher places, I even set the people after their families with their swords, their spears, and their bows.

In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for us.

You have also established prophets to announce in Jerusalem on your behalf, 'We have a king in Judah!' Now the king is going to hear about these rumors. So come on! Let's talk about this."

My God placed it on my heart to gather the leaders, the officials, and the ordinary people so they could be enrolled on the basis of genealogy. I found the genealogical records of those who had formerly returned. Here is what I found written in that record:

They were coming with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah. Here is the enumeration of: The Men of Israel:

Here is a list of returnees from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addan, and Immer, who could not prove their ancestry and lineage from Israel:

And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.

So he read it before the plaza in front of the Water Gate from dawn till noon before the men and women and those children who could understand. All the people were eager to hear the book of the law.

And Ezra took the book, opening it before the eyes of all the people (for he was higher than the people); and when it was open, all the people got to their feet:

And that they will cause to hear and will cause a voice to pass over in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go ye forth to the mountain and bring leaves of olive, and leaves of the tree of oil, and leaves of myrtle, and leaves of palms, and leaves of the tree interwoven, to make booths according to the writing.

And they and our fathers acted proudly, and they will harden their neck, and will not hear to thy commands,

and refused to hear, and were not mindful of the wonders that thou didst for them: but became obstinate and heady insomuch that they turned back to their bondage in their disobedience. But thou, my God, forgavest, and wast gracious, merciful, patient, and of great goodness, and forsookest them not.

and Thou givest them into the hand of their adversaries, and they distress them, and in the time of their distress they cry unto Thee, and Thou, from the heavens, dost hear, and, according to Thine abundant mercies, dost give to them saviours, and they save them out of the hand of their adversaries.

'And when they have rest, they turn back to do evil before Thee, and Thou dost leave them in the hand of their enemies, and they rule over them; and they turn back, and call Thee, and Thou from the heavens dost hear, and dost deliver them, according to Thy mercies, many times,

And testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.

And many years didst thou forbear them, and testified unto them through thy spirit, even by the office of thy prophets, and yet would they not hear. Therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the nations in the lands.

Here we are today,
slaves in the land You gave our ancestors
so that they could enjoy its fruit and its goodness.
Here we are—slaves in it!

Here is a list of those who signed: Hacaliah's son Nehemiah the governor, Zedekiah,

And Maaseiah and Eleazar and Uzzi and Jehonathan and Malchijah and Elam and Ezer and those singing will cause to hear, and Jezrahiah, reviewing.

Later that day the book of Moses was read aloud so the people could hear it, and a written command was discovered therein permanently prohibiting the Ammonites and Moabites from coming into the congregation of God

because they have not come before the sons of Israel with bread and with water, and hire against them Balaam to revile them, and our God turneth the reviling into a blessing.

And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Why then should we hear about you doing all this terrible evil and acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?”