Moreover, I said to the king, If it should please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah:

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

And I said, Should such a man as I flee? and who is there, that, being as I am, would go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in.

And my God put into my heart to assemble the nobles, and the rulers, and the people, that they might be reckoned by genealogy. And I found a register of the genealogy of them who came up at the first, and found written in it,

And thou didst divide the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou threwest into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.

Moreover, thou gavest them kingdoms and nations, and didst divide them into corners: so they possessed the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.

Their children also multipliedst thou as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.

So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who distressed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried to thee, thou hearedest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them deliverers, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.

Yet many years didst thou forbear over them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore thou gavest them into the hand of the people of the lands.

They united with their brethren, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his judgments and his statutes;

And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood-offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the law:

And the priest the son of Aaron shall be with the Levites, when the Levites take tithes: and the Levites shall bring up the tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers, into the treasure house.

And at that time were some appointed over the chambers for the treasures, for the offerings, for the first-fruits, and for the tithes, to gather into them out of the fields of the cities the portions of the law for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced for the priests and for the Levites that waited.

On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever:

Because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Baalam against them, that he should curse them: but our God turned the curse into a blessing.

In those days I saw in Judah some treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the sabbath day: and I testified against them in the day in which they sold provisions.