Let your ear now be attentive, and your eyes open, that you may listen to the prayer of your servant, which I pray before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel your servants while I confess the sins of the children of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Yes, I and my father's house have sinned.

Then the king said to me, "For what do you make request?" So I prayed to the God of heaven.

The king said to me (the queen was also sitting by him), "For how long shall your journey be? And when will you return?" So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple, for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into." The king granted my requests, because of the good hand of my God on me.

Then I came to the governors beyond the River, and gave them the king's letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen.

So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.

I went out by night by the valley gate, even toward the jackal's well, and to the dung gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates were consumed with fire.

Then I went on to the spring gate and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the animal that was under me to pass.

Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned.

Then I said to them, "You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we won't be disgraced."

I told them of the hand of my God which was good on me, as also of the king's words that he had spoken to me. They said, "Let's rise up and build." So they strengthened their hands for the good work.

Shallun the son of Colhozeh, the ruler of the district of Mizpah repaired the spring gate. He built it, and covered it, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden, even to the stairs that go down from the City of David.

So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together to half its height: for the people had a mind to work.

Judah said, "The strength of the bearers of burdens is fading, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall."

Our adversaries said, "They shall not know, neither see, until we come into their midst, and kill them, and cause the work to cease."

and the builders, everyone wore his sword at his side, and so built. He who sounded the trumpet was by me.

So we worked in the work: and half of them held the spears from the rising of the morning until the stars appeared.

So neither I, nor my brothers, nor my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes. Everyone took his weapon to the water.

There were also some who said, "We have borrowed money for the king's tribute using our fields and our vineyards as collateral.

Then they said, "We will restore them, and will require nothing of them; so will we do, even as you say." Then I called the priests, and took an oath of them, that they would do according to this promise.

Also I shook out my lap, and said, "So may God shake out every man from his house, and from his labor, that doesn't perform this promise; even thus be he shaken out, and emptied." All the assembly said, "Amen," and praised the LORD. The people did according to this promise.

But the former governors who were before me were supported by the people, and took bread and wine from them, besides forty shekels of silver; yes, even their servants ruled over the people: but I did not do so, because of the fear of God.

I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I can't come down. Why should the work cease, while I leave it, and come down to you?"

Then I sent to him, saying, "There are no such things done as you say, but you imagine them out of your own heart."

I went to the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home; and he said, "Let us meet together in God's house, within the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple; for they will come to kill you; yes, in the night will they come to kill you."

He hired so that I would be afraid, do so, and sin, and that they might have material for an unfavorable report, that they might taunt me.

So the wall was finished in the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in fifty-two days.

Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them.

the children of Keros, the children of Sia, the children of Padon,

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

All the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's servants, were three hundred ninety-two.

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.

They read in the book, in the law of God, distinctly; and they gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.

So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, "Hold your peace, for the day is holy; neither be grieved."

So the people went out, and brought them, and made themselves booths, everyone on the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of God's house, and in the broad place of the water gate, and in the broad place of the gate of Ephraim.

All the assembly of those who had come again out of the captivity made booths, and lived in the booths; for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the children of Israel had not done so. There was very great gladness.

"You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Sea of Suf,

You divided the sea before them, so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and you cast their pursuers into the depths, as a stone into the mighty waters.

Moreover you gave them kingdoms and peoples, which you allotted according to their portions. So they possessed the land of Sihon king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.

"So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they pleased.

They took fortified cities, and a rich land, and possessed houses full of all good things, cisterns dug out, vineyards, and olive groves, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate, were filled and became fat, and delighted themselves in your great goodness.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore left you them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them; yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies,

they joined with their brothers, their nobles, and entered into a curse, and into an oath, to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the LORD our Lord, and his ordinances and his statutes;

Now these are the chiefs of the province who lived in Jerusalem; but in the cities of Judah everyone lived in his possession in their cities: Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the Nethinim, and the children of Solomon's servants.

Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok, the son of Meraioth, the son of Ahitub, the ruler of God's house,

and Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who had the oversight of the outward business of God's house;

The overseer also of the Levites at Jerusalem was Uzzi the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica, of the sons of Asaph, the singers, over the business of God's house.

Pethahiah the son of Meshezabel, of the children of Zerah the son of Judah, was at the king's hand in all matters concerning the people.

Zanoah, Adullam, and their villages, Lachish and its fields, Azekah and its towns. So they encamped from Beersheba to the valley of Hinnom.

Of the Levites, certain divisions in Judah settled in Benjamin's territory.

So stood the two companies of those who gave thanks in God's house, and I, and the half of the rulers with me;

They offered great sacrifices that day, and rejoiced; for God had made them rejoice with great joy; and the women also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.

They performed the duty of their God, and the duty of the purification, and so did the singers and the gatekeepers, according to the commandment of David, and of Solomon his son.

and I came to Jerusalem, and understood the evil that Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in preparing him a room in the courts of God's house.

Then I commanded, and they cleansed the rooms: and there brought I again the vessels of God's house, with the meal offerings and the frankincense.

I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them; so that the Levites and the singers, who did the work, had fled everyone to his field.

Then I contended with the rulers, and said, "Why is God's house forsaken?" I gathered them together, and set them in their place.

In those days I saw in Judah some men treading winepresses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and loading donkeys; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all kinds of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day: and I testified against them in the day in which they sold food.

So the merchants and sellers of all kinds of wares lodged outside of Jerusalem once or twice.

Then I testified against them, and said to them, "Why do you stay around the wall? If you do so again, I will lay hands on you." From that time on, they did not come on the Sabbath.

In those days also saw I the Jews who had married women of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab: