The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace,

It happened in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence.

So the priests, and the Levites, and the gatekeepers, and the singers, and some of the people, and the Nethinim, and all Israel, lived in their cities. When the seventh month had come, the children of Israel were in their cities.

Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.

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;

Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting, and with sackcloth, and earth on them.