I said, “I beseech You, O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments,

but if you return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to cause My name to dwell.’

Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon.

For there were those who said, “We, our sons and our daughters are many; therefore let us get grain that we may eat and live.”

Also there were those who said, “We have borrowed money for the king’s tax on our fields and our vineyards.

Moreover, there were at my table one hundred and fifty Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us.

Also in those days many letters went from the nobles of Judah to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them.

Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first in which I found the following record:

He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law.

The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them. The sons of Israel had indeed not done so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day. And there was great rejoicing.

Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons and their daughters, all those who had knowledge and understanding,

In those days I saw in Judah some who were treading wine presses on the sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, and they brought them into Jerusalem on the sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food.

In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon and Moab.