Please, Lord, let Your ear be attentive to the prayer of Your servant and to that of Your servants who delight to revere Your name. Give Your servant success today, and have compassion on him in the presence of this man.

At the time, I was the king’s cupbearer.

And let me have a letter written to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, so that he will give me timber to rebuild the gates of the temple’s fortress, the city wall, and the home where I will live.” The king granted my requests, for I was graciously strengthened by my God.

all the people gathered together at the square in front of the Water Gate. They asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had given Israel.

You alone are Yahweh.
You created the heavens,
the highest heavens with all their host,
the earth and all that is on it,
the seas and all that is in them.
You give life to all of them,
and the heavenly host worships You.

You found his heart faithful in Your sight,
and made a covenant with him
to give the land of the Canaanites,
Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,
Jebusites, and Girgashites—
to give it to his descendants.
You have kept Your promise,
for You are righteous.

You provided bread from heaven for their hunger;
You brought them water from the rock for their thirst.
You told them to go in and possess the land
You had sworn to give them.

join with their noble brothers and commit themselves with a sworn oath to follow the law of God given through God’s servant Moses and to carefully obey all the commands, ordinances, and statutes of Yahweh our Lord.

We will not give our daughters in marriage to the surrounding peoples and will not take their daughters as wives for our sons.

We will impose the following commands on ourselves:

To give an eighth of an ounce of silver yearly for the service of the house of our God:

On that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy. The women and children also celebrated, and Jerusalem’s rejoicing was heard far away.

I also found out that because the portions for the Levites had not been given, each of the Levites and the singers performing the service had gone back to his own field.

I rebuked them, cursed them, beat some of their men, and pulled out their hair. I forced them to take an oath before God and said: “You must not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters as wives for your sons or yourselves!