and Hanani, one of my brethren, came with certain men of Judah, and I asked them how the Jews did that were delivered and escaped from the captivity, and how it went at Jerusalem.

And the king said unto me, the queen his wife sitting by him, "How long shall thy journey continue, and when wilt thou come again?" And it pleased the king to send me, and I set him a time,

And I said unto them, "Ye see the misery that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and how the gates thereof are burnt with fire. Come, let us build up the walls of Jerusalem, that we be no more a rebuke."

Hear, O thou our God, how we are despised! Turn their shame upon their own head, that thou mayest give them over into despising in the land of their captivity.

And they found written in the law, how that the LORD had commanded by Moses that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month.