The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it came to pass in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace,

Now I was cupbearer to the king. And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not [formerly] been sad in

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, [that is], twelve years, I and my brothers have not eaten the bre

Yea, also I continued in the work of this wall, neither did we buy any land. And all my servants were gathered there to the work.

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

Yea, forty years thou sustained them in the wilderness, [and] they lacked nothing; their clothes did not grow old, and their feet did not swell.

And if the peoples of the land bring wares or any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, that we would not buy from them on the Sabbath, or on a holy day. And that we would forego the seventh year, and the exaction of every debt.

And we cast lots, the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood-offering, to bring it into the house of our God, according to our fathers' houses, at times appointed, year by year, to burn upon the altar of LORD our God, a

and to bring the first-fruits of our ground, and the first-fruits of all fruit of all manner of trees, year by year, to the house of LORD,

But in all this [time] I was not at Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. And after certain days I asked leave of the king,