The history of Nehemiah, the son of Hacaliah. Now it came about, in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, when I was in Shushan, the king's town,

They said to me, The small band of Jews now living there in the land are in great trouble and shame: the wall of Jerusalem has been broken down, and its doorways burned with fire.

Let your ear now take note and let your eyes be open, so that you may give ear to the prayer of your servant, which I make before you at this time, day and night, for the children of Israel, your servants, while I put before you the sins of the children of Israel, which we have done against you: truly, I and my father's people are sinners.

We have done great wrong against you, and have not kept the orders, the rules, and the decisions, which you gave to your servant Moses.

And said to the king, May the king be living for ever: is it not natural for my face to be sad, when the town, the place where the bodies of my fathers are at rest, has been made waste and its doorways burned with fire?

And I said to the king, If it is the king's pleasure, and if your servant has your approval, send me to Judah, to the town where the bodies of my fathers are at rest, so that I may take in hand the building of it.

And a letter to Asaph, the keeper of the king's park, so that he may give me wood to make boards for the doors of the tower of the house, and for the wall of the town, and for the house which is to be mine. And the king gave me this, for the hand of my God was on me.

And I went out by night, through the doorway of the valley, and past the dragon's water-spring as far as the place where waste material was put, viewing the walls of Jerusalem which were broken down, and the doorways which had been burned with fire.

And Shallun, the son of Col-hozeh, the ruler of the division of Mizpah, made good the doorway of the fountain, building it up and covering it and putting up its doors, with their locks and rods, with the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden, as far as the steps which go down from the town of David.

And in the hearing of his countrymen and the army of Samaria he said, What are these feeble Jews doing? will they make themselves strong? will they make offerings? will they get the work done in a day? will they make the stones which have been burned come again out of the dust?

Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Such is their building that if a fox goes up it, their stone wall will be broken down.

Give ear, O our God, for we are looked down on: let their words of shame be turned back on themselves, and let them be given up to wasting in a land where they are prisoners:

And it came about that when the Jews who were living near them came, they said to us ten times, From all directions they are coming against us.

So we went on with the work: and half of them had spears in their hands from the dawn of the morning till the stars were seen.

Now the food made ready for one day was one ox and six fat sheep, as well as fowls; and once in ten days a store of all sorts of wine: but all the same, I did not take the food to which the ruler had a right, because the people were crushed under a hard yoke.

Keep in mind, O my God, for my good, all I have done for this people.

Now when word was given to Sanballat and Tobiah and to Geshem the Arabian and to the rest of our haters, that I had done the building of the wall and that there were no more broken places in it (though even then I had not put up the doors in the doorways);

And I sent men to them saying, I am doing a great work, so that it is not possible for me to come down: is the work to be stopped while I go away from it and come down to you?

Then I sent to him, saying, No such things as you say are being done, they are only a fiction you have made up yourself.

For they were hoping to put fear in us, saying, Their hands will become feeble and give up the work so that it may not get done. But now, O God, make my hands strong.

And when our haters had news of this, all the nations round about us were full of fear and were greatly shamed, for they saw that this work had been done by our God.

And they said much before me of the good he had done, and gave him accounts of my words. And Tobiah sent letters with the purpose of causing me fear.

Now the town was wide and great: but the people in it were only a small number, and the houses had not been put up.

These are the people of the divisions of the kingdom, among those who had been made prisoners by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and taken away by him, who went back to Jerusalem and Judah, every one to his town;

And Ezra gave praise to the Lord, the great God. And all the people in answer said, So be it, so be it; lifting up their hands; and with bent heads they gave worship to the Lord, going down on their faces to the earth.

All the people who had been prisoners and had come back, made tents and were living in them: for from the time of Jeshua, the son of Nun, till that day, the children of Israel had not done so. And there was very great joy.

You saw that his heart was true to you, and made an agreement with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Jebusite and the Girgashite, even to give it to his seed, and you have done what you said; for righteousness is yours:

By you the sea was parted before them, so that they went through the sea on dry land; and those who went after them went down into the deep, like a stone into great waters.

And you came down on Mount Sinai, and your voice came to them from heaven, giving them right decisions and true laws, good rules and orders:

And would not do them, and gave no thought to the wonders you had done among them; but made their necks stiff, and turning away from you, made a captain over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt: but you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up.

Even when they had made for themselves an ox of metal, and said, This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry;

But still, you have been in the right in everything which has come on us; you have been true to us, but we have done evil:

Now those who put down their names were Nehemiah the Tirshatha, the son of Hacaliah, and Zedekiah,

And the rulers of the people were living in Jerusalem: the rest of the people made selection, by the decision of chance, of one out of every ten to be living in Jerusalem, the holy town; the other nine to go to the other towns.

And Joel, the son of Zichri, was their overseer; and Judah, the son of Hassenuah, was second over the town.

All the Levites in the holy town were two hundred and eighty-four.

And by the doorway of the fountain and straight in front of them, they went up by the steps of the town of David, at the slope up of the wall, over the house of David, as far as the water-doorway to the east.

And on that day certain men were put over the rooms where the things which had been given were stored, for the lifted offerings and the first-fruits and the tenths, and to take into them the amounts, from the fields of every town, fixed by the law for the priests and the Levites: for Judah was glad on account of the priests and the Levites who were in their places.

And I came to Jerusalem; and it was clear to me what evil Eliashib had done for Tobiah, in making ready for him a room in the buildings of the house of God.

Keep me in mind, O my God, in connection with this, and do not let the good which I have done for the house of my God and its worship go from your memory completely.

Did not your fathers do the same, and did not our God send all this evil on us and on this town? but you are causing more wrath to come on Israel by not keeping the Sabbath holy.