let Your ear now be open, and Your eyes open, so that You may hear the prayer of Your servant, which I pray before You now, day and night, for the sons of Israel Your servants, and confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You. Both I and my father's house have sinned.

O Jehovah, I pray You, let now Your ear be open to the prayer of Your servant, and to the prayer of Your servants who desire to fear Your name. And I pray You, bless Your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. (For I was the king's cupbearer.)

And I said to the king, Let the king live forever. Why should not my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' tombs, lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire?

And I said to the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors Beyond the River, so that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah,

And I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem is wasted, and the gates of it are burned with fire. Come and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no more be a reproach.

And I told them of the hand of my God which was good upon me, and also the king's words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up to build. So they made their hands strong for good.

But the sons of Hassenaah built the Fish Gate, who laid its beams and set up its doors, its locks, and its bars.

And the Old Gate was repaired by Jehoiada the son of Paseah, and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah. They laid its beams and set up its doors and its locks and its bars.

And do not cover their iniquity, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before You. For they have provoked You to anger before the builders.

Also at the same time I said to the people, Let everyone with his servant stay inside Jerusalem, so that in the night they may be a guard to us, and labor in the day.

For certain ones said, We, our sons, and our daughters, are many. Let us get grain for them, so that we may eat and live.

Some also said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses. Let us buy grain because of the famine.

And also I, my brothers and my servants, might take from them silver and grain. Please let us leave this lending at interest.

Also I shook my lap and said, So let God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, who does not keep this promise, even may he be shaken out this way and emptied. And all the congregation said, amen, and praised Jehovah. And the people did according to this promise.

Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, Come, let us meet together in the villages in the plain of Ono. But they thought to do me harm.

And you have also set up prophets to preach about you at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah. And now it shall be reported to the king according to these words. And now come and let us talk it over together.

And I came to the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabeel, who was shut up. And he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple. For they will come to kill you. Yea, in the night they will come to kill you.

And I said to them, Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot. And while they stand by, let them shut and bar the doors. And set guards from the people of Jerusalem, each one in his watch, and each one to be across from his house.

The sons of Lod, Hadid, and Ono, seven hundred and twenty-one.

And stood upon the stairs, of the Levites, Jeshua, and Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani and Chenani, and cried with a loud voice to Jehovah their God.

And You led them in the day by a cloudy pillar, and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way in which they should go.

yet You in Your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness. The pillar of the cloud did not depart from them by day to lead them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night, to show them light and the way in which they should go.

And now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the fearful God, who keeps covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble that has come upon us, on our kings, on our rulers, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all Your people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day, seem little before You.

Lod, and Ono, the Valley of Craftsmen.

and Maaseiah, and Shemaiah, and Eleazar, and Uzzi, and Jehohanan, and Malchijah, and Elam, and Ezer. And the singers sang loud, with Jezrahiah their overseer.

and he had prepared for himself a large room where they had in days of old laid the food offering, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the grain, the new wine, and the oil, which was commanded to be given to the Levites, and the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the offerings of the priests.