After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Beth-zur, to the place over against the sepulchers of David, and to the pool that was made, and to the house of the mighty.

Some also there were that said, We have mortgaged our lands, vineyards, and houses, that we might buy corn, because of the dearth.

I likewise, my brethren, and my servants, might exact of them money and corn: I pray you, let us leave off this usury.

Therefore was he hired, that I should be afraid, and do so, and sin, and that they might have matter for an evil report, that they might reproach me.

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.

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.

Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee, that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on our fathers, and on all thy people, since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.

And that we should bring the first-fruits of our dough, and our offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, of wine and of oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground to the Levites, that the same Levites might have the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.

And their brethren, mighty men of valor, a hundred twenty and eight: and their overseer was Zabdiel, the son of one of the great men.