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.

And said, O Lord, the God of heaven, the great God, greatly to be feared, keeping faith and mercy with those who have love for him and are true to his laws:

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.

Keep in mind, O Lord, the order you gave your servant Moses, saying, If you do wrong I will send you wandering among the peoples:

But if you come back to me and keep my orders and do them, even if those of you who have been forced out are living in the farthest parts of heaven, I will get them from there, and take them back to the place marked out by me for the resting-place of my name.

Now these are your servants and your people, whom you have made yours by your great power and by your strong hand.

O Lord, let your ear take note of the prayer of your servant, and of the prayers of your servants, who take delight in worshipping your name: give help, O Lord, to your servant this day, and let him have mercy in the eyes of this man. (Now I was the king's wine-servant.)

And it came about 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 never before been sad when the king was present.

And the king said to me, Why is your face sad, seeing that you are not ill? this is nothing but sorrow of heart. Then I was full of fear;

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?

Then the king said to me, What is your desire? So I made prayer to the God of heaven.

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 the king said to me (the queen being seated by his side), How long will your journey take, and when will you come back? So the king was pleased to send me, and I gave him a fixed time.

And Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, hearing of it, were greatly troubled because a man had come to the help of the children of Israel.

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 the chiefs had no knowledge of where I had been or what I was doing; and I had not then said anything to the Jews or to the priests or the great ones or the chiefs or the rest of those who were doing the work.

Then I said to them, You see what a bad condition we are in; how Jerusalem is a waste, and its doorways burned with fire: come, let us get to work, building up the wall of Jerusalem, so that we may no longer be put to shame.

But Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, hearing of it, made sport of us, laughing at us and saying, What are you doing? will you go against the king?

Then answering them I said, The God of heaven, he will be our help; so we his servants will go on with our building: but you have no part or right or any name in Jerusalem.

And by his side the men of Jericho were building. And after them, Zaccur, the son of Imri.

The sons of Hassenaah were the builders of the fish doorway; they put its boards in place and put up its doors, with their locks and rods.

By their side Meremoth, the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, was making good the walls. Then Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, the son of Meshezabel; and by him, Zadok, the son of Baana.

Near them, the Tekoites were at work; but their chiefs did not put their necks to the work of their Lord.

By their side were working Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah from the seat of the ruler across the river.

Malchijah, the son of Harim, and Hasshub, the son of Pahath-moab, were working on another part, and the tower of the ovens.

Hanun and the people of Zanoah were working on the doorway of the valley; they put it up and put up its doors, with their locks and rods, and a thousand cubits of wall as far as the doorway where the waste material was placed.

By his side was working Nehemiah, the son of Azbuk, ruler of half the division of Beth-zur, as far as the place opposite the last resting-places of David's family, and the pool which was made and the house of the men of war.

After him were working their brothers, Bavvai, the son of Henadad, ruler of half the division of Keilah.

After him Meremoth, the son of Uriah, the son of Hakkoz, was working on another part, from the door of the house of Eliashib as far as the end of his house.

After him were working the priests, the men of the lowland.

After them came Benjamin and Hasshub, opposite their house. After them Azariah, the son of Maaseiah, the son of Ananiah, made good the wall by the house where he himself was living.

(Now the Nethinim were living in the Ophel, as far as the place facing the water doorway to the east, and the tower which comes out.)

After him the Tekoites were making good another part, opposite the great tower which comes out, and up to the wall of the Ophel.

Further on, past the horse doorway, the priests were at work, every one opposite his house.

After him Hananiah, the son of Shelemiah, and Hanun, the sixth son of Zalaph, were making good another part. After him Meshullam, the son of Berechiah, made good the wall opposite his room.

Now, Sanballat, hearing that we were building the wall, was very angry, and in his wrath made sport of the Jews.

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?

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:

Let not their wrongdoing be covered or their sin washed away from before you: for they have made you angry before the builders.

So we went on building the wall; and all the wall was joined together half-way up: for the people were working hard.

But when it came to the ears of Sanballat and Tobiah and the Arabians and the Ammonites and the Ashdodites, that the building of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and the broken places were being made good, they were full of wrath;

But we made our prayer to God, and had men on watch against them day and night because of them.

And those who were against us said, Without their knowledge and without their seeing us, we will come among them and put them to death, causing the work to come to a stop.

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.

And after looking, I got up and said to the great ones and to the chiefs and to the rest of the people, Have no fear of them: keep in mind the Lord who is great and greatly to be feared, and take up arms for your brothers, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses.

And when it came to the ears of those who were against us, that we had knowledge of their designs and that God had made their purpose come to nothing, we all went back to the wall, everyone to his work

And from that time, half of my servants were doing their part of the work, and half kept the spears and body-covers and the bows and the metal war-dresses; and the chiefs were at the back of the men of Judah.

Those who were building the wall and those who were moving material did their part, everyone working with one hand, with his spear in the other;

And I said to the great ones and the chiefs and the rest of the people, The work is great and widely spaced and we are far away from one another on the wall:

Wherever you may be when the horn is sounded, come here to us; our God will be fighting for 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.

So not one of us, I or my brothers or my servants or the watchmen who were with me, took off his clothing, everyone went armed to the water.

For there were some who said, We, our sons and our daughters, are a great number: let us get grain, so that we may have food for our needs.

And there were some who said, We are giving our fields and our vine-gardens and our houses for debt: let us get grain because we are in need.

And there were others who said, We have given up our fields and our vine-gardens to get money for the king's taxes.

But our flesh is the same as the flesh of our countrymen, and our children as their children: and now we are giving our sons and daughters into the hands of others, to be their servants, and some of our daughters are servants even now: and we have no power to put a stop to it; for other men have our fields and our vine-gardens.

And I said to them, We have given whatever we were able to give, to make our brothers the Jews free, who were servants and prisoners of the nations: and would you now give up your brothers for a price, and are they to become our property? Then they said nothing, answering not a word.

And I said, What you are doing is not good: is it not the more necessary for you to go in the fear of our God, because of the shame which the nations may put on us?

Now from the time when I was made ruler of the people in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year till the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes the king, for twelve years, I and my servants have never taken the food which was the right of the ruler.

But earlier rulers who were before me made the people responsible for their upkeep, and took from them bread and wine at the rate of forty shekels of silver; and even their servants were lords over the people: but I did not do so, because of the fear of God.

And I kept on with the work of this wall, and we got no land for ourselves: and all my servants were helping with the work.

And more than this, a hundred and fifty of the Jews and the rulers were guests at my table, in addition to those who came to us from the nations round about us.

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.

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 in it these words were recorded: It is said among the nations, and Geshem says so, that you and the Jews are hoping to make yourselves free from the king's authority; and that this is why you are building the wall: and they say that it is your purpose to be their king;

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.

For in Judah there were a number of people who had made an agreement by oath with him, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah, the son of Arah; and his son Jehohanan had taken as his wife the daughter of Meshullam, the son of Berechiah.

And I said to them, Do not let the doors of Jerusalem be open till the sun is high; and while the watchmen are in their places, let the doors be shut and locked: and let the people of Jerusalem be put on watch, every one in his watch, opposite his house.

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;

The children of Arah, six hundred and fifty-two.

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

All these were the people who went up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer; but because they had no knowledge of their fathers' families or offspring, it was not certain if they were Israelites:

They made search for their record among the lists of families, but their names were nowhere to be seen, so they were looked on as unclean and no longer priests.

And the Tirshatha said that they were not to have the most holy things for their food, till a priest came to give decision by the Urim and Thummim.

As well as their men-servants and their women-servants, of whom there were seven thousand, three hundred and thirty-seven; and they had two hundred and forty-five men and women to make music.

So the priests and the Levites and the door-keepers and the music-makers and some of the people and the Nethinim, and all Israel, were living in their towns.

And when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their towns. And all the people came together like one man into the wide place in front of the water-doorway; and they made a request to Ezra the scribe that he would put before them the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

And Ezra the priest put the law before the meeting of the people, before the men and women and all those who were able to take it in, on the first day of the seventh month.

He was reading it in the wide place in front of the water-doorway, from early morning till the middle of the day, in the hearing of all those men and women whose minds were able to take it in; and the ears of all the people were open to the book of the law.

And Ezra the scribe took his place on a tower of wood which they had made for the purpose; and by his side were placed Mattithiah and Shema and Anaiah and Uriah and Hilkiah and Maaseiah on the right; and on the left, Pedaiah and Mishael and Malchijah and Hashum and Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam.

And they gave out the words of the book the law of God, clearly, and gave the sense of it, so that their minds were able to take it in.

And Nehemiah, who was the Tirshatha, and Ezra, the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were the teachers of the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God; let there be no sorrow or weeping; for all the people were weeping on hearing the words of the law.

Then he said to them, Go away now, and take the fat for your food and the sweet for your drink, and send some to him for whom nothing is made ready: for this day is holy to our Lord: and let there be no grief in your hearts; for the joy of the Lord is your strong place.

And all the people went away to take food and drink, and to send food to others, and to be glad, because the words which were said to them had been made clear.

And they saw that it was recorded in the law that the Lord had given orders by Moses, that the children of Israel were to have tents for their living-places in the feast of the seventh month:

And that they were to give out an order, and make it public in all their towns and in Jerusalem, saying, Go out to the mountain and get olive branches and branches of field olives and of myrtle, and palm branches and branches of thick trees, to make tents, as it says in the book.

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.

And for a fourth part of the day, upright in their places, they were reading from the book of the law of their God; and for a fourth part of the day they were requesting forgiveness and worshipping the Lord their God.

Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, Get up and give praise to the Lord your God for ever and ever. Praise be to your great name which is lifted up high over all blessing and praise.

You are the Lord, even you only; you have made heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their armies, the earth and all things in it, the seas and everything in them; and you keep them from destruction: and the armies of heaven are your worshippers.

You are the Lord, the God, who took Abram and made him yours, guiding him from Ur of the Chaldees, and gave him the name of Abraham;

And you saw the trouble of our fathers in Egypt, and their cry came to your ears by the Red Sea;

And you did signs and wonders on Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land; for you saw how cruel they were to them. So you got yourself a name as it is today.

And you went before them by day in a pillar of cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light on the way they were to go.

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: