Some of the sons of Israel, with some of the priests and Levites, the singers and gatekeepers, and the temple servants also went up [from Babylon] to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.

And whatever seems good to you and to your brothers to do with the rest of the silver and the gold, you may do in accordance with the will of your God.

For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands. Indeed, the officials and chief men have been foremost in this unfaithful act and direct violation [of God’s will].”

For we are slaves; yet our God has not abandoned us in our bondage, but has extended lovingkindness to us before the kings of Persia, to revive us to rebuild the house of our God, to repair the site of its ruins and to give us a wall [of protection] in Judah and Jerusalem.

All these had married foreign women, and some of them had wives by whom they had children.

For there were some who were saying, “We, along with our sons and our daughters, are many; therefore allow us to get grain, so that we may eat and survive.”

There were others who were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards, and our houses to buy grain because of the famine.”

Now our flesh (skin) is the same as that of our brothers (relatives), and our children are like their children, yet here we are forcing (selling) our sons and our daughters to be slaves; and some of our daughters are forced into bondage already, and we are powerless [to redeem them] because our fields and vineyards belong to others.”

Some from among the heads of fathers’ households gave to the work. The governor gave to the treasury 1,000 gold drachmas, 50 basins, 530 priests’ garments.

Some of the heads of fathers’ households gave to the treasury for the work 20,000 gold drachmas and 2,200 silver minas.

So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, along with all Israel, lived in their cities.

And when the seventh month came, the sons (descendants) of Israel (Jacob) were in their cities.

“Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps the covenant and lovingkindness,
Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You,
Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people,
Since the time of the kings of Assyria to this day.

As for the villages with their fields, some sons (descendants) of Judah lived in Kiriath-arba and its towns, Dibon and its towns, and Jekabzeel and its villages,

Now when it began to get dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath [began], I commanded that the doors be shut and not be opened until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load [of merchandise] would enter [Jerusalem] on the Sabbath day.

So I contended with them and cursed them and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, “You shall not give your daughters [in marriage] to their sons, nor take [any of] their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, and the exact amount of money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

“As I have seen, those who plow wickedness
And those who sow trouble and harm harvest it.

‘Does it indeed seem right to You to oppress,
To despise and reject the work of Your hands,
And to look with favor on the schemes of the wicked?

‘Remember now, that You have made me as clay;
So will You turn me into dust again?

“How long will you hunt for words and continue these speeches?
Do some clear thinking and show understanding and then we can talk.

“Some remove the landmarks;
They [violently] seize and pasture flocks [appropriating land and flocks openly].

Many are saying, “Oh, that we might see some good!”
Lift up the light of Your face upon us, O Lord.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
But we will remember and trust in the name of the Lord our God.

Men of low degree are only a breath (emptiness), and men of [high] rank are a lie (delusion).
In the balances they go up [because they have no measurable weight or value];
They are together lighter than a breath.

When He killed [some of] them, then those remaining sought Him,
And they returned [to Him] and searched diligently for God [for a time].

Why should the [Gentile] nations say, “Where is their God?”
Let there be known [without delay] among the nations in our sight [and to this generation],
Your vengeance for the blood of Your servants which has been poured out.

“But You remain the same,
And Your years will never end.

They wandered in the wilderness in a [solitary] desert region;
And did not find a way to an inhabited city.

Some dwelt in darkness and in the deep (deathly) darkness,
Prisoners [bound] in misery and chains,

Fools, because of their rebellious way,
And because of their sins, were afflicted.

Those who go down to the sea in ships,
Who do business on great waters;

The sum of Your word is truth [the full meaning of all Your precepts],
And every one of Your righteous ordinances endures forever.

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

For the Lord will be your confidence, firm and strong,
And will keep your foot from being caught [in a trap].

The lot is cast into the lap,
But its every decision is from the Lord.

The words of a whisperer (gossip) are like dainty morsels [to be greedily eaten];
They go down into the innermost chambers of the body [to be remembered and mused upon].

He who robs his father or his mother
And says, “This is no sin,”
Is [not only a thief but also] the companion of a man who destroys.

And I set my mind to know [practical] wisdom and to discern [the character of] madness and folly [in which men seem to find satisfaction]; I realized that this too is a futile grasping and chasing after the wind.

I explored with my mind how to gratify myself with wine while [at the same time] having my mind remain steady and guide me wisely; and how to take control of foolishness, until I could see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.

For there is no [more] lasting remembrance of the wise man than of the fool, since in the days to come all will be long forgotten. And how does the wise man die? Even as the fool!

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to see the activities [of mankind] that take place upon the earth—how some men seem to sleep neither day nor night—

Their arrows are sharp and all their bows are strung and bent;
Their horses’ hoofs seem like flint and their chariot wheels like a whirlwind.

In that day [when foreign armies swarm the land] the Lord will shave with a razor, hired from the regions beyond the Euphrates (that is, with the king of Assyria), [that razor will shave] the head and the hair of the legs; and it will also remove the beard [leaving Judah stripped, shamed and scorned].

And Moab will spread out his hands in the middle of the filth
As a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim,
But the Lord will humiliate his pride in spite of the [skillful] movements of his hands.

Therefore this wickedness [this sin, this injustice, this wrongdoing] will be to you
Like a crack [in a wall] about to fall,
A bulge in a high wall,
Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,

“This shall be the sign [of these things] to you [Hezekiah]: you are to eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same, and in the third year you are to sow and harvest, and plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

By the way that he came, by the same way he will return, and he will not come into this city,’ declares the Lord.

‘And some of your own sons (descendants) who will come from you, whom you will father, will be taken away, and they will become officials in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”

No one sues righteously [but for the sake of doing injury to others—to take some undue advantage], and no one pleads [his case] in truth; [but rather]
They trust in empty arguments and speak lies;
They conceive trouble and bring forth injustice.

I will also take some of them as priests and Levites,” says the Lord.

Thus says the Lord, “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware jar, and take some of the elders of the people and some of the senior priests

“But any nation or kingdom that will not serve this same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and put its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation I will punish,” says the Lord, “with the sword, with famine and with pestilence (virulent disease), until I have destroyed it by Nebuchadnezzar’s hand.

I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah in the same way, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people, and live!

In the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year and the fifth month, the [false] prophet Hananiah the son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon [one of the priests’ cities], spoke [without godly authority] to me in the house of the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying:

The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah [some time] after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying,

So Hananiah the [false] prophet died [two months later], the same year, in the seventh month.

“Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak to them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, into one of the [side] chambers; then give them [who are pledged not to drink wine] some wine to drink.”

But Nebuzaradan the [Babylonian] captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people who had nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.

“If grape gatherers came to you,
Would they not leave some ungleaned grapes [on the vines]?
If thieves came by night,
Would they not destroy [only] what is enough [for them]?

Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard took away into exile some of the poorest of the people, those who were left in the city [at the time it was captured], along with those who deserted to join the king of Babylon [during the siege] and the rest of the artisans.

But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left some of the poorest of the land to be vinedressers and farmers.

[And as for us,] yet our eyes failed,
Looking in vain for help.
Watching [from the towers] we watched
For a nation that could not save.

When I say to the wicked, ‘You will certainly die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to tell him to turn from his wicked way to save his life, that same evil man will die in his sin, but you will be responsible for his blood.

Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness (right standing with God) and sins, and I place an obstacle before him, he will die; since you have not warned him, he will die in his sin, and the righteous deeds which he has done will not be remembered; but you will be responsible for his blood.

Again take some hair and throw them into the fire and burn them in the fire; from it a fire will spread to all the house of Israel.

“Yet I will leave some of you alive [a remnant], for you will have some who escaped the sword among the nations when you are scattered throughout the countries.

Then a cherub stretched out his hand from between the cherubim to the fire that was between [the four of] them, and took some [of it] and put it into the hands of the man clothed in linen, who took it and departed.

Then the cherubim rose upward. They are the [same four] living beings [regarded as one] that I saw by the River Chebar [in Babylonia].

As for the likeness of their faces, they were the same faces whose appearance I had seen by the River Chebar. Each one went straight forward.

They [both] will bear the punishment of their wickedness; the sin of the [counterfeit] prophet will be the same as the sin of the [hypocritical] inquirer,

You took some of your clothes and made for yourself [decorated] high places and shrines of various colors and prostituted yourself on them—things which should never have come about and taken place.

“As for you, son of man, mark out two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come, both starting from the same land. And make a signpost; place it at the head of the way to the city.

It will seem like a false divination in their eyes, those who have sworn solemn oaths [of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar]. But he will remind them of their guilt [by rebelling and violating their oath], that they may be caught.

Moreover, they have done this to Me: they have defiled My sanctuary on the same day [of their idolatries] and have profaned My Sabbaths.

For when they had killed their children [as offerings] to their idols, then they came the same day to My sanctuary to profane it [by daring to offer a sacrifice there also]. And behold, this they did within My house.

“Son of man, record the name of the day, this very day. The king of Babylon has laid siege to Jerusalem this very day.

‘Thus says the Lord God, “It will come about on that day that thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil plan,

In the twenty-fifth year of our exile [in Babylon], in the beginning of the year, on the tenth [day] of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city [of Jerusalem] was taken, on that [very] same day the hand of the Lord was upon me and He brought me there.

There were three guardrooms on each side of the gate toward the east; the three were the same size, and the side pillars on each side measured the same.

Its guardrooms, three on each side, and its side pillars and its porches had the same measurement as the first gate. Its length was fifty cubits and the width was twenty-five cubits.

Its windows and its porches and its palm tree decorations had the same measurements as the gate that faced toward the east. It was reached by going up seven steps, and its porch was in front of them.

Then the man (angel) brought me to the inner courtyard by the south gate; and he measured the south gate according to those same measurements.

He brought me into the inner courtyard toward the east, and he measured the gate; it measured the same as the others.

Then he brought me to the north gate and he measured it; the measurements were the same as those of the other gates,

with its guardrooms, its side pillars, its porches; and the gate had windows all around. The length was fifty cubits and the width was twenty-five cubits.

and a passage in front of them was like the appearance of the [attached] chambers on the north, and they had the same length and width, and all their exits were like both their arrangements and their entrances.

As for the prince, he shall sit in it as prince to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by way of the porch (portico) of the gate and shall go out the same way.”

The ephah and the bath [measures] shall be the same quantity, the bath containing one tenth of a homer and the ephah one tenth of a homer; their standard [measure] shall be according to the homer.

The priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering and put it on the door posts of the temple, on the four corners of the ledge of the altar, and on the posts of the gate of the inner courtyard.

In the seventh month, on the fifteenth day of the month at the feast, he shall provide [offerings] like these for the seven days, as the sin offering, the burnt offering, the grain offering, and the oil.”

In the four corners of the courtyard there were enclosed courtyards, forty cubits long and thirty wide; these four in the corners were the same size.

Again he measured a thousand [cubits]; and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be crossed [by wading].

And the [Babylonian] king told Ashpenaz, the chief of his officials, to bring in some of the sons of Israel, including some from the royal family and from the nobles,

And as you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it will be a divided kingdom; but there will be in it some of the durability and strength of iron, just as you saw the iron mixed with common clay.

Now at the same time my reason returned to me; and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor were returned to me, and my counselors and my nobles began seeking me out; so I was re-established in my kingdom, and still more greatness [than before] was added to me.

It was because an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and insight, the ability to interpret dreams, clarify riddles, and solve complex problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called and he will give the interpretation.”

Then, by agreement, these same men came to the king and said, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute which the king establishes may be altered or revoked.”

And [in my vision] this horn grew up to the host of heaven, and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled on them.

After some years the Syrian king of the North and the Egyptian king of the South will make an alliance; the daughter (Berenice) of the king of the South will come to the king of the North to make an equitable and peaceful agreement (marriage); but she will not retain the power of her position, nor will he retain his power. She will be handed over with her attendants and her father as well as he who supported her in those times.

But out of a branch of her [familial] roots will one (her brother, Ptolemy III Euergetes I) arise in his place, and he will come against the [Syrian] army and enter the fortress of the king of the North, and he will deal with them and will prevail.