Cyrus, king of Persia, has said, All the kingdoms of the earth have been given to me by the Lord, the God of heaven; and he has made me responsible for building a house for him in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him and let him go up.

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 Urim and Thummim.

Then they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of families, and said to them, Let us take part in the building with you; for we are servants of your God, even as you are; and we have been making offerings to him from the days of Esar-haddon, king of Assyria, who put us here.

But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, You have no part with us in the building of a house for our God; we ourselves will do the work together for the Lord, the God of Israel, as Cyrus, king of Persia, has given us orders.

We give news to the king that the Jews who came from you have come to us at Jerusalem; they are building up again that uncontrolled and evil town; the walls are complete and they are joining up the bases.

Now because we are responsible to the king, and it is not right for us to see the king's honour damaged, we have sent to give the king word of these things,

And I gave orders for a search to be made, and it is certain that in the past this town has made trouble for kings, and that outbursts against authority have taken place there.

Further, there have been great kings in Jerusalem, ruling over all the country across the river, to whom they gave taxes and payments in goods and forced payments.

And whatever they have need of, young oxen and sheep and lambs, for burned offerings to the God of heaven, grain, salt, wine, and oil, whatever the priests in Jerusalem say is necessary, is to be given to them day by day regularly:

And I have given orders that if anyone makes any change in this word, one of the supports is to be pulled out of his house, and he is to be lifted up and fixed to it; and his house is to be made waste for this;

And may the God who has made it a resting-place for his name send destruction on all kings and peoples whose hands are outstretched to make any change in this or to do damage to this house of God at Jerusalem. I, Darius, have given this order, let it be done with all care.

And now it is my order that all those of the people of Israel, and their priests and Levites in my kingdom, who are ready and have a desire to go to Jerusalem, are to go with you.

And the vessels which have been given to you for the uses of the house of your God, you are to give to the God of Jerusalem.

And whatever more is needed for the house of your God, and which you may have to give, take it from the king's store-house.

And I, even I, Artaxerxes the king, now give orders to all keepers of the king's money across the river, that whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, may have need of from you, is to be done with all care,

And you, Ezra, by the wisdom of your God which is in you, are to put rulers and judges to have authority over all the people across the river who have knowledge of the laws of your God; and you are to give teaching to him who has no knowledge of them.

Now after these things were done, the captains came to me and said, The people of Israel and the priests and Levites have not kept themselves separate from the people of the lands, but have taken part in the disgusting ways of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.

For they have taken their daughters for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy seed has been mixed with the peoples of the lands; and in fact the captains and rulers have been the first to do this evil.

From the days of our fathers till this day we have been great sinners; and for our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been given up into the hands of the kings of the lands, to the sword and to prison and to loss of goods and to shame of face, as it is this day.

And now, O our God, what are we to say after this? for we have not kept your laws,

Which you gave to your servants the prophets, saying, The land into which you are going, to take it for a heritage, is an unclean land, because of the evil lives of the peoples of the land and their disgusting ways, which have made the land unclean from end to end.

And after everything which has come on us because of our evil-doing and our great sin, and seeing that the punishment which you, O God, have given us, is less than the measure of our sins, and that you have kept from death those of us who are here;

And Shecaniah, the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, answering, said to Ezra, We have done evil against our God, and have taken as our wives strange women of the peoples of the land: but still there is hope for Israel in this question.

And Ezra the priest got to his feet and said to them, You have done wrong and taken strange women for your wives, so increasing the sin of Israel.

Then all the people, answering, said with a loud voice, As you have said, so it is right for us to do.

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.

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.)

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 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?

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

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.

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 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.

Even I and my servants have been taking interest for the money and the grain we have let them have. So now, let us give up this thing.

Give back to them this very day their fields, their vine-gardens, their olive-gardens, and their houses, as well as a hundredth part of the money and the grain and the wine and the oil which you have taken from them.

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.

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

Sanballat and Geshem sent to me saying, Come, let us have a meeting in one of the little towns in the lowland of Ono. But their purpose was to do me evil.

And that you have prophets preaching about you in Jerusalem, and saying, There is a king in Judah: now an account of these things will be sent to the king. So come now, and let us have a discussion.

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.

And I went to the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut up; and he said, Let us have a meeting in the house of God, inside the Temple, and let the doors be shut: for they will come to put you to death; truly, in the night they will come to put you to death.

For this reason they had given him money, in order that I might be overcome by fear and do what he said and do wrong, and so they would have reason to say evil about me and put shame on me.

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.

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:

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 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:

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:

And our kings, our rulers, our priests, and our fathers have not kept your law or given attention to your orders and your witness, with which you gave witness against them.

For they have not been your servants in their kingdom, and in all the good things you gave them, and in the great and fat land you gave them, and they have not been turned away from their evil-doing.

And it gives much increase to the kings whom you have put over us because of our sins: and they have power over our bodies and over our cattle at their pleasure, and we are in great trouble.

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.

Then I gave witness against them and said, Why are you waiting all night by the wall? if you do so again I will have you taken prisoners. From that time they did not come again on the Sabbath.

And I gave the Levites orders to make themselves clean and come and keep the doors and make the Sabbath holy. Keep this in mind to my credit, O my God, and have mercy on me, for great is your mercy.

Keep them in mind, O my God, because they have put shame on the priests' name and on the agreement of the priests and the Levites.

Now when they had said this to him day after day and he gave no attention, they let Haman have news of it, to see if Mordecai's behaviour would be overlooked: for he had said to them that he was a Jew.

And Esther's women and her servants came and gave her word of it. Then great was the grief of the queen: and she sent robes for Mordecai, so that his clothing of haircloth might be taken off; but he would not have them.

It is common knowledge among all the king's servants and the people of every part of the kingdom, that if anyone, man or woman, comes to the king in his inner room without being sent for, there is only one law for him, that he is to be put to death; only those to whom the king's rod of gold is stretched out may keep their lives: but I have not been sent for to come before the king these thirty days.

Then Mordecai sent this answer back to Esther: Do not have the idea that you in the king's house will be safe from the fate of all the Jews.

If at this time you say nothing, then help and salvation will come to the Jews from some other place, but you and your father's family will come to destruction: and who is to say that you have not come to the kingdom even for such a time as this?

And Esther in answer said, If it seems good to the king, let the king and Haman come today to the feast which I have made ready for him.

If I have the king's approval, and if it is the king's pleasure to give me my prayer and do my request, let the king and Haman come to the feast which I will make ready for them, and tomorrow I will do as the king has said.

And the king said, What honour and reward have been given to Mordecai for this? Then the servants who were waiting on the king said, Nothing has been done for him.

So Haman came in. And the king said to him, What is to be done to the man whom the king has delight in honouring? Then the thought came into Haman's mind, Whom, more than myself, would the king have pleasure in honouring?

Then the king said to Haman, Go quickly, and take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, who is seated at the king's doorway: see that you do everything as you have said.

Then Esther the queen, answering, said, If I have your approval, O king, and if it is the king's pleasure, let my life be given to me in answer to my prayer, and my people at my request:

For we are given up, I and my people, to destruction and death and to be cut off. If we had been taken as men-servants and women-servants for a price, I would have said nothing, for our trouble is little in comparison with the king's loss.

And she said, If it is the king's pleasure and if I have his approval and this thing seems right to the king and I am pleasing to him, then let letters be sent giving orders against those which Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, sent out for the destruction of the Jews in all divisions of the kingdom:

Then King Ahasuerus said to Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, See now, I have given Esther the family of Haman, and he has come to his death by hanging, because he made an attack on the Jews.

Now on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, when the time came for the king's order to be put into effect, on the very day when the haters of the Jews had been hoping to have rule over them; though the opposite had come about, and the Jews had rule over their haters;

And the king said to Esther the queen, The Jews have put five hundred men to death in Shushan, as well as the ten sons of Haman: what then have they done in the rest of the kingdom! Now what is your prayer? for it will be given to you; what other request have you? and it will be done.

And at the end of their days of feasting, Job sent and made them clean, getting up early in the morning and offering burned offerings for them all. For, Job said, It may be that my sons have done wrong and said evil of God in their hearts. And Job did this whenever the feasts came round.

And the Lord said to the Satan, Have you taken note of my servant Job, for there is no one like him on the earth, a man without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil?

Have you yourself not put a wall round him and his house and all he has on every side, blessing the work of his hands, and increasing his cattle in the land?

And the Lord said to the Satan, Have you taken note of my servant Job, for there is no one like him on the earth, a man without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil? and he still keeps his righteousness, though you have been moving me to send destruction on him without cause.

That night--let the thick dark take it; let it not have joy among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.

As for that night, let it have no fruit; let no voice of joy be sounded in it;

Let its morning stars be dark; let it be looking for light, but may it not have any; let it not see the eyes of the dawn.

For then I might have gone to my rest in quiet, and in sleep have been in peace,

Or as a child dead at birth I might never have come into existence; like young children who have not seen the light.

There the passions of the evil are over, and those whose strength has come to an end have rest.

In place of my food I have grief, and cries of sorrow come from me like water.

For I have a fear and it comes on me, and my heart is greatly troubled.

I have no peace, no quiet, and no rest; nothing but pain comes on me.

Truly, you have been a helper to others, and you have made feeble hands strong;

He who was near to falling has been lifted up by your words, and you have given strength to bent knees.

Have you ever seen destruction come to an upright man? or when were the god-fearing ever cut off?

What I have seen is that those by whom trouble has been ploughed, and evil planted, get the same for themselves.

I have seen the foolish taking root, but suddenly the curse came on his house.

Now his children have no safe place, and they are crushed before the judges, for no one takes up their cause.

But he keeps safe from their sword those who have no father, and the poor from the power of the strong.

He will keep you safe from the evil tongue; and you will have no fear of wasting when it comes.

You will make sport of destruction and need, and will have no fear of the beasts of the earth.

See, we have made search with care, and it is so; it has come to our ears; see that you take note of it for yourself.

For then its weight would be more than the sand of the seas: because of this my words have been uncontrolled.