but if ye return to me, and keep my commandments and do them, though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

Next to them repaired Uzziel the son of Harhaiah, of the goldsmiths; and next to him repaired Hananiah of the perfumers, and they left Jerusalem in its state as far as the broad wall.

And next to them repaired Rephaiah the son of Hur, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem.

And next to them repaired Shallum the son of Hallohesh, the ruler of the half part of Jerusalem, he and his daughters.

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

Restore, I pray you, to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive-gardens, and their houses, also the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the wine and the oil, that ye have exacted of them.

Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor.

But the former governors that were before me had been chargeable to the people, and had taken of them bread and wine, besides forty shekels of silver: even their servants bore rule over the people. But I did not so, because of the fear of God.

And that which was prepared daily was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days all sorts of wine in abundance. Yet for all this I demanded not the bread of the governor; for the service was heavy upon this people.

The children of Solomon's servants: the children of Sotai, the children of Sophereth, the children of Perida,

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

And the people went forth and brought them, and made themselves booths, everyone upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the open space of the water-gate, and in the open space of the gate of Ephraim.

And they stood up in their place, and read in the book of the law of Jehovah their God a fourth part of the day; and a fourth part they confessed, and worshipped Jehovah their God.

And thou gavest them bread from the heavens for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and didst say to them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

Yea, when they had made them a molten calf, and said, This is thy god that brought thee up out of Egypt! and they had wrought great provocation,

and that if the peoples of the land brought wares or any grain on the sabbath day to sell, we would not take it of them on the sabbath, or on any holy day; and that we would leave the land uncultivated the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.

And we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God,

for the bread to be set in rows, and for the continual oblation, and for the continual burnt-offering, for that of the sabbaths and of the new moons, for the set feasts and for the holy things, and for the sin-offerings to make an atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.

And I brought up the princes of Judah upon the wall, and appointed two great choirs and processions, on the right hand upon the wall towards the dung-gate.

And the second choir went in the opposite direction upon the wall, and I after them, and the half of the people, from beyond the tower of the furnaces even to the broad wall;

because they had not met the children of Israel with bread and with water, and had hired Balaam against them, to curse them; but our God turned the curse into blessing.

And I commanded, and they purified the chambers; and thither brought I again the vessels of the house of God, the oblation and the frankincense.

And all Judah brought the tithe of the corn and the new wine and the oil into the storehouses.

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

Men of Tyre also dwelt therein, who brought fish and all manner of ware, and sold it on the sabbath to the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.

And it came to pass, that when it began to be dark in the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut; and I commanded that they should not be opened till after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants at the gates, so that no burden should be brought in on the sabbath day.