please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You, day and night, on behalf of Your servants, the sons (descendants) of Israel (Jacob), confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have committed against You; I and my father’s house have sinned.

Now they are Your servants and Your people whom You have redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand.

Please, O Lord, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and the prayer of Your servants who delight to [reverently] fear Your Name [Your essence, Your nature, Your attributes, with awe]; and make Your servant successful this day and grant him compassion in the sight of this man [the king].”

For I was cupbearer to the king [of Persia].

[And Nehemiah prayed] Hear, O our God, how we are despised! Return their taunts on their own heads. Give them up as prey in a land of captivity.

Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens loaded themselves so that everyone worked with one hand and held a weapon with the other.

Now there was a great outcry of the [poorer] people and their wives against their Jewish brothers [to whom they were deeply in debt].

I said to them, “Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot; and while the watchmen are still standing guard, have them shut and bar the doors. Appoint guards from the residents of Jerusalem, each at his post [on the wall], and each in front of his own house.”

“Yet You were patient with them for many years,
And admonished them and warned them by Your Spirit through Your prophets;
Still they would not listen.
Therefore You gave them into the hand (power) of the peoples of the lands.

“Its abundant produce is for the kings
Whom You have set over us because of our sins;
They also rule over our bodies
And over our cattle as they please,
So we are in great distress.