let Your eyes be open and Your ears be attentive to hear Your servant’s prayer that I now pray to You day and night for Your servants, the Israelites. I confess the sins we have committed against You. Both I and my father’s house have sinned.

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard that someone had come to seek the well-being of the Israelites, they were greatly displeased.

They came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Raamiah, Nahamani, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispereth, Bigvai, Nehum, and Baanah.

The number of the Israelite men included:

The following are those who came from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer, but were unable to prove that their families and ancestors were Israelite:

So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel settled in their cities. When the seventh month came, the {Israelites} [were] in their cities.

They found written in the law, which Yahweh had commanded by the hand of Moses, that the {Israelites} should live in booths during the festival of the seventh month,

And all of the assembly of those who returned from captivity made booths and lived in the booths because the {Israelites} had not done it from the days of Jeshua son of Nun until that day. And there was very great joy.

Ezra read out of the book of the law of God every day, from the first day to the last. The Israelites celebrated the festival for seven days, and on the eighth day there was an assembly, according to the ordinance.

On the twenty-fourth day of this month the {Israelites} gathered in fasting, in sackcloths, and with soil on them.

Those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and they stood and confessed their sins and the guilt of their fathers.

“Then You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh,
Against all his servants and all the people of his land;
For You knew that they behaved arrogantly toward them (the Israelites),
And You made a name for Yourself, as it is to this day.

For the {Israelites} and the {Levites} will bring to the storerooms the offering of grain, new wine, and olive oil. These are the objects of the sanctuary and the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and singers. We will not neglect the house of our God."

These are the heads of the province who stayed in Jerusalem (but in the villages of Judah each lived on his own property in their towns—the Israelites, priests, Levites, temple servants, and descendants of Solomon’s servants—

And the rest of the Israelites, with the priests and the Levites, were in all the cities of Judah, each on his own property.

because they did not come to meet the {Israelites} with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them in order to curse them--but our God changed the curse into a blessing.