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.

While they stood in their places, they read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day and for another fourth [of it] they confessed [their sins] and worshiped the Lord their God.

Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani stood on the raised platform built for the Levites and cried out loudly to the Lord their God.

Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever: and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

And foundest his heart faithful before thee, and madest a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Jebusites, and the Girgashites, to give it, I say, to his seed, and hast performed thy words; for thou art righteous:

And shewedst signs and wonders upon Pharaoh, and on all his servants, and on all the people of his land: for thou knewest that they dealt proudly against them. So didst thou get thee a name, as it is this day.

Moreover thou leddest them in the day by a cloudy pillar; and in the night by a pillar of fire, to give them light in the way wherein they should go.

And thou madest known unto them thy holy sabbath, and prescribedst for them commandments and statutes and a law, through Moses thy servant.

And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

and refused to hear, and were not mindful of the wonders that thou didst for them: but became obstinate and heady insomuch that they turned back to their bondage in their disobedience. But thou, my God, forgavest, and wast gracious, merciful, patient, and of great goodness, and forsookest them not.

“Even when they had made for themselves
A calf of cast metal
And said, ‘This is your god
Who brought you up from Egypt,’
And committed great [and contemptible] blasphemies,

Yet thou in thy manifold mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to shew them light, and the way wherein they should go.

Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.

You provided for them in the wilderness 40 years
and they lacked nothing.
Their clothes did not wear out,
and their feet did not swell.

And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, making distribution to them in every part of the land: so they took for their heritage the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan.

And you made their children as great in number as the stars of heaven, and took them into the land, of which you had said to their fathers that they were to go in and take it for themselves.

And they will take inaccessible cities, and a fat land, and they will inherit houses full of all good, and wells hewed out, vineyards and olive trees, and the tree of food for abundance: and they will eat and be filled, and be fat, and will live delicately in thy great goodness.

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.

You were patient toward them for many years, and you have warned them by your spirit through the hand of your prophets, but they did not listen. So you gave them into the hand of the nations of the lands.

Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.

And now, O our God -- God, the great, the mighty, and the fearful, keeping the covenant and the kindness -- let not all the travail that hath found us be little before Thee, for our kings, for our heads, and for our priests, and for our prophets, and for our fathers, and for all Thy people, from the days of the kings of Asshur unto this day;

Howbeit thou art just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly:

“For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law
Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them.

For they have not served thee in their kingdom, and in thy great goodness that thou gavest them, and in the large and fat land which thou gavest before them, neither turned they from their wicked works.

Behold, we are servants this day, and for the land that thou gavest unto our fathers to eat the fruit thereof and the good thereof, behold, we are servants in it:

and, the increase thereof, aboundeth unto the kings whom thou hast set over us, for our sins, - and, over our bodies, are they bearing rule, and over our cattle, at their pleasure, and, in great distress, we are.

And yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, and our priests, seal unto it.

The rest of the people, the priests, the descendants of Levi, the gatekeepers, the singers, the Temple Servants, and everyone who had separated themselves from the nations of the surrounding lands for the Law of God their wives, their sons, their daughters, and all who had knowledge and understanding

and their lords that had rule of them, received it for their brethren. And they came to sware, and to bind themselves with an oath to walk in God's law, which was given by Moses the servant of God, that they would observe and do according unto all the commandments, judgments, and statutes of the LORD our God:

And that we would not give our daughters unto the people of the land, nor take their daughters for our sons:

As for the people of the land who bring merchandise or grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or on any holy day. We will forego planting crops, and we will cancel debts during every seventh year."

Also we made ordinances for us, to charge ourselves yearly with the third part of a shekel for the service of the house of our God;

For the shewbread, and for the continual meat offering, and for the continual burnt offering, of the sabbaths, of the new moons, for the set feasts, and for the holy things, and for the sin offerings to make an atonement for Israel, and for all the work of the house of our God.

And we cast the lots among the priests, the Levites, and the people, for the wood offering, to bring it into the house of our God, after the houses of our fathers, at times appointed year by year, to burn upon the altar of the LORD our God, as it is written in the law:

We [also] bring the first fruits of our soil and the first fruits of all the fruit trees, year by year, for the house of Yahweh.

as well as the firstborn of our sons and our cattle, as recorded in the Law, along with the firstlings of our herds and our flocks, to present to the Temple of our God for the priests that minister in the Temple of our God.

and that we should bring the first-fruits of our dough, and our heave-offerings, and the fruit of all manner of trees, the new wine and the oil, unto the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and the tithes of our ground unto the Levites; for they, the Levites, take the tithes in all the cities of our tillage.

And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, will be with the Levites during the tithe the Levites receive. The Levites will bring up a tithe of the tithes for the house of our God to the chambers of the storehouse.

For the children of Israel and the children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, of the new wine, and the oil, unto the chambers, where are the vessels of the sanctuary, and the priests that minister, and the porters, and the singers: and we will not forsake the house of our God.

Now the leaders of the people stayed in Jerusalem, and the rest of the people cast lots for one out of ten to come and live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while the other nine-tenths remained in their towns.

All the sons of Perez that dwelt at Jerusalem were four hundred threescore and eight valiant men.

and their colleagues who were carrying out work for the temple -- 822; and Adaiah son of Jeroham, the son of Pelaliah, the son of Amzi, the son of Zechariah, the son of Pashhur, the son of Malkijah,

And Shabbethai and Jozabad, of the chiefs of the Levites, who were responsible for the outside business of the house of God;

And Mattaniah son of Micha, son of Zabdi, son of Asaph, head of the beginning of Judah for prayer: and Bakbukiah the second from his brethren, and Abda, son of Shammua, son of Galal, son of Jeduthan.

All the Levites in the holy city were two hundred fourscore and four.

As for the residue of Israel, the priests, and Levites: they were in all the cities of Judah, every one in his inheritance.

And the overseer of the Levites at Jerusalem was Uzzi the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica, of the sons of Asaph, the singers, for the work of the house of God.

For it was the king's commandment concerning them, that a certain portion should be for the singers, due for every day.

And Pethahiah son of Meshezabeel, of the sons of Zerah, son of Judah, is by the hand of the king, for every matter of the people.

And for the villages, with their fields, some of the children of Judah dwelt at Kirjatharba, and in the villages thereof, and at Dibon, and in the villages thereof, and at Jekabzeel, and in the villages thereof,

Zanoah, Adullam, and their villages, Lachish and its fields, Azekah and its towns. So they encamped from Beersheba as far as the valley of Hinnom.

And of the Levites, the courses of Judah are for Benjamin.

As for the Levites, in the days of Eliashib, Joiada, and Johanan, and Jaddua, there were recorded the heads of fathers houses ; also the priests, in the reign of Darius the Persian.

Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places in order to bring them to Jerusalem to celebrate the dedication with gladness, with hymns of thanksgiving, and with songs to the accompaniment of cymbals, harps, and lyres.

Also from the house of Gilgal, and out of the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the singers had builded them villages round about Jerusalem.

And by the doorway of the fountain and straight in front of them, they went up by the steps of the town of David, at the slope up of the wall, over the house of David, as far as the water-doorway to the east.

And the other band of those who gave praise went to the left, and I went after them with half the people, on the wall, over the tower of the ovens, as far as the wide wall;

And over the doorway of Ephraim and by the old door and the fish door and the tower of Hananel and the tower of Hammeah, as far as the sheep door: and at the doorway of the watchmen they came to a stop.

Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.

And at that time were some appointed over the chambers for the treasures, for the offerings, for the firstfruits, and for the tithes, to gather into them out of the fields of the cities the portions of the law for the priests and Levites: for Judah rejoiced for the priests and for the Levites that waited.

And they kept the watch of their God, and were responsible for making things clean, and so did the music-makers and the door-keepers, as it was ordered by David and Solomon his son.

For in the days of David and Asaph of old there were chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God.

And all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel, and in the days of Nehemiah, gave the portions of the singers and the porters, as every day required: and they set apart that which was for the Levites; and the Levites set apart that which was for the sons of Aaron.

On that day they read in the book of Moses in the audience of the people; and therein was found written, that the Ammonite and the Moabite should not come into the congregation of God for ever;

because they did not meet the Israelites with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. Yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

And he had prepared for him a great chamber, where aforetime they laid the meat offerings, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithes of the corn, the new wine, and the oil, which was commanded to be given to the Levites, and the singers, and the porters; and the offerings of the priests.

But in all this time was not I at Jerusalem: for in the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon came I unto the king, and after certain days obtained I leave of the king:

And I came to Jerusalem, and understood of the evil that Eliashib did for Tobiah, in preparing him a chamber in the courts of the house of God.

It was very displeasing for me, and I threw all of the objects from the house of Tobiah outside of the chamber.

And I perceived that the portions of the Levites had not been given them: for the Levites and the singers, that did the work, were fled every one to his field.

And I made treasurers over the treasuries, Shelemiah the priest, and Zadok the scribe, and of the Levites, Pedaiah: and next to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah: for they were counted faithful, and their office was to distribute unto their brethren.

Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for the offices thereof.

In those days, saw I in Judah - some treading winepresses on the sabbath, and bringing in sheaves and lading asses, moreover also wine, grapes, and figs, and every kind of burden, which they were bringing into Jerusalem on the sabbath day, - so I protested against it, as a day for them to sell provisions.

And, men of Tyre, dwelt therein, who were bringing in fish - and every kind of ware for sale, - and were selling, on the sabbath, to the sons of Judah, and in Jerusalem;

And so, when the streets of Jerusalem were getting dark before the Sabbath, I gave orders for the doors to be shut and not to be open again till after the Sabbath: and I put some of my servants by the door so that nothing might be taken in on the Sabbath day.

And I commanded the Levites that they should purify themselves, and that they should come and keep the gates, to hallow the sabbath day. Remember this also for me, my God, and spare me according to thy great loving-kindness!

As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people.

And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

Are we then without protest to let you do all this great evil, sinning against our God by taking strange women for your wives?

Remember them, my God, for they are polluters of the priesthood, and of the covenant of the priesthood and of the Levites!

Thus cleansed I them from all foreigners, and appointed charges for the priests and for the Levites, every one in his work;

And for the wood offering, at times appointed, and for the firstfruits. Remember me, O my God, for good.

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:)

in the third year of his reign he held a banquet for all his officials and his attendants. The army officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the officials of the provinces were there in his presence.

And he displayed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days in all.

When these days were completed, the king held a banquet for all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa [the capital], from the greatest [in importance] to the least, a seven-day feast in the courtyard of the garden of the king’s palace.

There were fair hangings of white and green and blue, fixed with cords of purple and the best linen to silver rings and pillars of polished stone: the seats were of gold and silver on a floor of red and white and yellow and black stone.

And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man's pleasure.

Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahasuerus.

To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.

Then the king said to the wise men, which knew the times, (for so was the king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment:

According to law, what ought to be done, with Queen Vashti, - for that she hath not performed the command of King Ahasuerus, through the eunuchs?

For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not.

And when the king's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small.

For he sent letters into all the king's provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and that it should be published according to the language of every people.

Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king:

And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto Shushan the palace, to the house of the women, unto the custody of Hege the king's chamberlain, keeper of the women; and let their things for purification be given them:

And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.

And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him; and he speedily gave her her things for purification, with such things as belonged to her, and seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the king's house: and he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women.

Esther had not shewed her people nor her kindred: for Mordecai had charged her that she should not shew it.