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.

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:

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.

Then there was a great outcry from the people and their wives against their countrymen the Jews.

And after turning it over in my mind, I made a protest to the chiefs and the rulers, and said to them, Every one of you is taking interest from his countryman. And I got together a great meeting of protest.

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.

And shaking out the folds of my robe, I said, So may God send out from his house and his work every man who does not keep this agreement; even so let him be sent out and made as nothing. And all the meeting of the people said, So be it, and gave praise to the Lord. And the people did as they had said.

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 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.

And I sent men to them saying, I am doing a great work, so that it is not possible for me to come down: is the work to be stopped while I go away from it and come down to you?

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;

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:

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.

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 day by day, from the first day till the last, he was reading from the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast for seven days: and on the eighth day there was a holy meeting, as it is ordered in the law.

And the seed of Israel made themselves separate from all the men of other nations, publicly requesting forgiveness for their sins and the wrongdoing of their fathers.

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.

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 came down on Mount Sinai, and your voice came to them from heaven, giving them right decisions and true laws, good rules and orders:

And you gave them bread from heaven when they were in need, and made water come out of the rock for their drink, and gave them orders to go in and take for their heritage the land which your hand had been lifted up to give them.

And would not do them, and gave no thought to the wonders you had done among them; but made their necks stiff, and turning away from you, made a captain over themselves to take them back to their prison in Egypt: but you are a God of forgiveness, full of grace and pity, slow to wrath and great in mercy, and you did not give them up.

And you gave your good spirit to be their teacher, and did not keep back your manna from their mouths, and gave them water when they had need of it.

And so you gave them up into the hands of their haters who were cruel to them: and in the time of their trouble, when they made their prayer to you, you gave ear to them from heaven; and in your great mercy gave them saviours, who made them free from the hands of their haters.

But when they had rest, they did evil again before you: so you gave them into the hands of their haters, who had rule over them: but when they came back and made their prayer to you, you gave ear to them from heaven; again and again, in your mercy, you gave them salvation;

And now, our God, the great, the strong, the God who is to be feared, who keeps faith and mercy, let not all this trouble seem small to you, which has come on us, and on our kings and our rulers and on our priests and our prophets and our fathers and on all your people from the time of the kings of Assyria till this day.

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 the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the door-keepers, the music-makers, the Nethinim, and all those who had made themselves separate from the peoples of the lands, to keep the law of God, their wives, their sons, and their daughters, everyone who had knowledge and wisdom;

And if the peoples of the lands come to do trade in goods or food on the Sabbath day, that we would do no trade with them on the Sabbath or on a holy day: and that in the seventh year we would take no payment from any debtor.

For there was an order from the king about them and a regular amount for the music-makers, for their needs day by day.

Zanoah, Adullam and their daughter-towns, Lachish and its fields, Azekah and its daughter-towns. So they were living from Beer-sheba to the valley of Hinnom.

And the children of Benjamin were living from Geba, at Michmash and Aija, and at Beth-el and its daughter-towns,

And the sons of the music-makers came together from the lowland round about Jerusalem and from the daughter-towns of the Netophathites,

And from Beth-gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the music-makers had made daughter-towns for themselves round about Jerusalem.

And on that day certain men were put over the rooms where the things which had been given were stored, for the lifted offerings and the first-fruits and the tenths, and to take into them the amounts, from the fields of every town, fixed by the law for the priests and the Levites: for Judah was glad on account of the priests and the Levites who were in their places.

On that day there was a reading from the book of Moses in the hearing of the people; and they saw that it said in the book that no Ammonite or Moabite might ever come into the meeting of God;

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 one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib, the chief priest, was son-in-law to Sanballat the Horonite: so I sent him away from me.

So I made them clean from all strange people, and had regular watches fixed for the priests and for the Levites, everyone in his work;

Now it came about in the days of Ahasuerus, (that Ahasuerus who was ruler of a hundred and twenty-seven divisions of the kingdom, from India as far as Ethiopia:)

If it is pleasing to the king, let an order go out from him, and let it be recorded among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it may never be changed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her place to another who is better than she.

Who had been taken away from Jerusalem among those who had been made prisoner with Jeconiah, king of Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken him away.

And he was pleased with the girl and was kind to her; and he quickly gave her what was needed for making her clean, and the things which were hers by right, and seven servant-girls who were to be hers from the king's house: and he had her and her servant-girls moved to the best place in the women's part of the house.

Esther had not said what family or people she came from, for Mordecai had given her orders not to do so.

And in this way the girl went in to the king; whatever she had a desire for was given to her to take with her from the women's house into the house of the king.

Then the king gave a great feast for all his captains and his servants, even Esther's feast; and he gave orders through all the divisions of his kingdom for a day of rest from work, and gave wealth from his store.

In the first month, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, from day to day and from month to month they went on looking for a sign given by Pur (that is chance) before Haman, till the sign came out for the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar.

And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, There is a certain nation living here and there in small groups among the people in all the divisions of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of any other nation, and they do not keep the king's laws: for this reason it is not right for the king to let them be.

And the king took his ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the hater of the Jews.

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 the king in his wrath got up from the feast and went into the garden: and Haman got to his feet to make a prayer for his life to Esther the queen: for he saw that the king's purpose was evil against him.

Then the king came back from the garden into the room where they had been drinking; and Haman was stretched out on the seat where Esther was. Then the king said, Is he taking the queen by force before my eyes in my house? And while the words were on the king's lips, they put a cloth over Haman's face.

And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther put Mordecai over the family of Haman.

Then at that time, on the twenty-third day of the third month, which is the month Sivan, the king's scribes were sent for; and everything ordered by Mordecai was put in writing and sent to the Jews and the captains and the rulers and the chiefs of all the divisions of the kingdom from India to Ethiopia, a hundred and twenty-seven divisions, to every division in the writing commonly used there, and to every people in their language, and to the Jews in their writing and their language.

In these letters the king gave authority to the Jews in every town to come together and make a fight for their lives, and to send death and destruction on the power of any people in any part of the kingdom attacking them or their children or their women, and to take their goods from them by force,

And Mordecai went out from before the king, dressed in king-like robes of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold and clothing of purple and the best linen: and all the town of Shushan gave loud cries of joy.

And the other Jews in every division of the kingdom came together, fighting for their lives, and got salvation from their haters and put seventy-five thousand of them to death; but they did not put a hand on their goods.

As days on which the Jews had rest from their haters, and the month which for them was turned from sorrow to joy, and from weeping to a good day: and that they were to keep them as days of feasting and joy, of sending offerings to one another and good things to the poor.

And that those days were to be kept in memory through every generation and every family, in every division of the kingdom and every town, that there might never be a time when these days of Purim would not be kept among the Jews, or when the memory of them would go from the minds of their seed.

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job. He was without sin and upright, fearing God and keeping himself far from evil.

And the Lord said to the Satan, Where do you come from? And the Satan said in answer, From wandering this way and that on the earth, and walking about on it.

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 the Lord said to the Satan, See, I give all he has into your hands, only do not put a finger on the man himself. And the Satan went out from before the Lord.

And this one was still talking when another came, and said, The fire of God came down from heaven, burning up the sheep and the goats and the young men completely, and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

When a great wind came rushing from the waste land against the four sides of the house, and it came down on the young men, and they are dead; and I was the only one who got away safe to give you the news.

And the Lord said to the Satan, Where do you come from? And the Satan said in answer, From wandering this way and that on the earth, and walking about on it.

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.

And the Satan went out from before the Lord, and sent on Job an evil disease covering his skin from his feet to the top of his head.

And he said to her, You are talking like one of the foolish women. If we take the good God sends us, are we not to take the evil when it comes? In all this Job kept his lips from sin.

And Job's three friends had word of all this evil which had come on him. And they came every one from his place, Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. So they came together to a meeting-place, in order that they might go and make clear to Job their grief for him, and give him comfort.

That day--let it be dark; let not God take note of it from on high, and let not the light be shining on it;

Because it did not keep the doors of my mother's body shut, so that trouble might be veiled from my eyes.

The small and the great are there, and the servant is free from his master.

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

If one says a word, will it be a weariness to you? but who is able to keep from saying what is in his mind?

In troubled thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep comes on men,

Something was present before me, but I was not able to see it clearly; there was a form before my eyes: a quiet voice came to my ears, saying:

Their produce is taken by him who has no food, and their grain goes to the poor, and he who is in need of water gets it from their spring.

But trouble is man's fate from birth, as the flames go up from the fire.

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

Truly, that man is happy who has training from the hand of God: so do not let your heart be shut to the teaching of the Ruler of all.

He will keep you safe from six troubles, and in seven no evil will come near you.

When there is need of food he will keep you from death, and in war from the power of the sword.

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

I have no help in myself, and wisdom is completely gone from me.

Or, Get me out of the power of my hater? or, Give money so that I may be free from the power of the cruel ones?

When I go to my bed, I say, When will it be time to get up? but the night is long, and I am turning from side to side till morning light.

So I will not keep my mouth shut; I will let the words come from it in the pain of my spirit, my soul will make a bitter outcry.

When I say, In my bed I will have comfort, there I will get rest from my disease;

I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath.

How long will it be before your eyes are turned away from me, so that I may have a minute's breathing-space?

If your children have done evil against him, then their punishment is from his hand.

If he is taken away from his place, then it will say, I have not seen you.

The time will come when your mouth will be full of laughing, and cries of joy will come from your lips.

Who gives orders to the sun, and it does not give its light; and who keeps the stars from shining.

Even if my cause was good, I would not be able to give an answer; I would make request for grace from him who was against me.

I go in fear of all my pains; I am certain that I will not be free from sin in your eyes.