But the people are many, and it is the time of rain; we are unable to stand outside. The task is not for one day or two, for we greatly rebelled in this matter.

Please, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I am praying before you by day and by night for your servants, the {Israelites}, and confessing the sins of the {Israelites} that we have sinned against you. I and my father's house have sinned.

We have certainly offended you and have not kept the commands, regulations, and judgments that you have commanded your servant Moses.

So the king said to me, "Why is your face sad since you are not sick? This is nothing but sadness of the heart." And I was very much afraid.

I said to the king, "May the king live forever! Why should my face not be sad when the city of my ancestors' burial site is ruined and her gates are consumed by fire?"

I got up during the night, I and a few men with me. I did not tell anybody what my God put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. No animal [was] with me except the animal that I was riding on.

I went out during the night at the gate of the valley by the Dragon spring and to the Dung Gate. And I examined the walls in Jerusalem and its gates that had been destroyed by the fire.

So I went up by the valley during the night and was examining the wall. Then I returned and came to the Valley Gate and returned.

The prefects did not know where I had gone and what I was doing. I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the prefects, and the rest of the workers.

{Next to them} the Tekoites repaired, but their nobles did not put their neck to the work of their lord.

Do not cover their guilt, and do not let their sin be blotted out from before you. They have {provoked the builders to anger}.

So we prayed to our God and set up a guard against them day and night.

But Judah said, "The strength of the carriers is failing, and there is too much dirt, and we are not able to build at the wall."

Then our enemies said, "They will not know nor see until we come upon them and will kill them and stop the work."

And I looked, got up, and said to the nobles, prefects, and the rest of the people, "Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses."

At the time I also said to the people, "Let each man and his servant spend the night inside Jerusalem, so that they will be a guard for us in the night and work in the day."

and I said to them: "We ourselves have bought back our brothers the Jews who were sold to the nations as we were able. But now you yourselves have sold your brothers so they may be sold to us!" They were silent and could not find a word [to say].

So I said, "The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God [to prevent] the disgrace from the nations, our enemies?

So they said, "We will restore it and will not request [anything more]. So we will do as you say." Then I called the priests and made them take an oath to do this promise.

I also shook out my garment and said, "This is how God will shake out everyone from his house who will not keep this promise. So this is how his possessions will be shaken out and emptied." And all the assembly said, "Amen!" And they praised Yahweh, and the people kept this promise.

Moreover, from the appointed day I was made their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes--twelve years. My brothers and I did not eat the food [allowance] of the governor.

The former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people, and they took food and wine from them, besides forty shekels. Also, their servants controlled the people, but I did not do so because of the fear of God.

I also devoted myself to the work of this wall, and we did not buy land. All of my servants were gathered for the work.

Now what was prepared each day for me was one ox, six choice sheep, and birds. And every ten days all [kinds of] wine were made. But for this I did not demand the food [allowance] of the governor because the slavery was too heavy on this people.

Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab, and to the rest of our enemies that I had built the wall and that no gap was left in it--though up to that time I had not erected doors in the gates--

So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work and I am not able to come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you all?"

for all of them [sought] to frighten us, saying, "their hands will not do the work." And now, [God], strengthen my hands.

Now I went into the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined [at home], and he said, "Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple; for they are coming to kill you--during the night they are coming to kill you."

But I said, "Should a man like me run away? And would a man like me go into the temple so that he can save his life? I will not go in!"

Then I look and realized God had not sent him; rather, he had spoken the prophecy against me [because] Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.

Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to their works, and also Noadiah the prophetess, and the remainder of the prophets who were frightening me.

I said to them, "Do not open the gates of Jerusalem until the sun is hot. While they are standing guard let them shut and fasten the doors. And appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, one at his post and another opposite his house."

These were the ones who came up from Tel-melah, Tel-harsha, Cherub, Addon, and Immer, but they were not able to prove their ancestral houses or their descent, whether they were from Israel:

These sought their record among those enrolled in the genealogy, but it was not found there, so they were excluded as unclean from the priesthood.

So the governor said to them that they could not eat the most holy food until a priest could come with Urim and Thummim.

Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all of the people, "This day is holy to Yahweh your God. Do not mourn nor weep." For all of the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

Then he said to them, "Go, eat festive food and drink sweet drinks, and send a share to those for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our lord. Do not be grieved because the joy of Yahweh is your refuge."

So the Levites silenced all of the people, saying, "Silence, for this day is holy. Do not be grieved."

And all of the assembly of those who returned from captivity made booths and lived in the booths because the {Israelites} had not done it from the days of Jeshua son of Nun until that day. And there was very great joy.

You led them by day with a column of cloud and with a column of fire by night, to give them light on the way that they were to go.

"But they and our ancestors acted arrogantly and stiffened their neck and did not listen to your commandments.

They refused to listen and did not remember your wonders that you did among them. They stiffened their neck and in their rebellion {determined} to return to their slavery. But you are a God of forgiveness, gracious and compassionate, {slow to anger}, abundant in loyal love, so you did not abandon them.

But you in your many mercies did not abandon them in the desert. The column of cloud [that was] over them in the day did not cease to leave them on the way, and the column of fire by night [that] gave light to them on the way that they went.

And you gave your good Spirit to instruct them and did not withhold your manna from their mouth and gave them water for their thirst.

Forty years you sustained them in the desert--they were not in need. Their clothing did not wear out and their feet did not swell.

You warned them so that they would return to your law. Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to your commandments but sinned against your judgments that a person must do so that they may live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not listen.

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.

But in your great compassions you did not put an end to them, and you did not abandon them. For you are a gracious and compassionate God.

"And now our God, the great, mighty, and awesome God who keeps [his] covenant and loyal love, do not belittle in your presence all of the hardship that is found in us, our kings, our officials, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all of our people, from the days of the kings of Assyria until this day.

Our kings, our officials, our priests, and our ancestors did not keep your law and did not listen to your commandments and statutes that you declared to them.

And in their kingdom and in the greatness you gave to them, and in the wide and fertile land that you gave before them, they did not serve you and did not turn from their evil deeds.

We will not give our daughters to the peoples of the land nor take their daughters for our sons.

And the peoples of the land who bring merchandise and any grain on the Sabbath day to sell, we will not accept it from them on the Sabbath or on a holy day. We will forego [the crops of] the seventh year and [cancel] every debt.

For the {Israelites} and the {Levites} will bring to the storerooms the offering of grain, new wine, and olive oil. These are the objects of the sanctuary and the priests who minister and the gatekeepers and singers. We will not neglect the house of our God."

because they did not come to meet the {Israelites} with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them in order to curse them--but our God changed the curse into a blessing.

During all of this, I was not in Jerusalem because in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. At the end of [some] days I asked permission from the king [to leave].

And then I came to learn that the food of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, the doers of the work, had gone back each to his field.

Remember me, my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my loyal acts which I have done in the house of my God and in his service.

Did not your ancestors do this also, and our God brought on us all of this disaster and on this city [too]? Now you are adding fierce wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath!"

So when it became dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I commanded that the doors be shut and said that they should not be opened until after the Sabbath. And I appointed some of my young men over the gates [to prevent] any {goods} being brought in on the day of the Sabbath.

So the merchants and the sellers of merchandise spent the night outside of Jerusalem once or twice.

But I warned them and said to them, "Why are you spending the night opposite the wall? If you do [it again], I will lay hands against you." From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.

Half of their children spoke Ashdodite and could not speak Judean, but [only] the tongues of other nations.

So I quarreled with them and cursed them and beat some of their men and pulled out their hair. I made them take an oath by God: "Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in this way? And among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was beloved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel. Yet the foreign women made even him sin.

"According to [the] law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti, because she has not done the command of King Ahasuerus {conveyed by} the eunuchs?

And Memucan said before the king and the officials, "Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king, but to all the officials and all of the people who [are] in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.

For this deed of the queen {will be known} to all the women, causing them {to look with contempt on their husbands}, as they will say, 'King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him but she did not come!'

{If it pleases} the king, let {a royal edict} go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of Persia and Media so that it will not be altered, that Vashti cannot come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to her neighbor who [is] better than she.

He was raising Hadassah, that [is] Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she did not have a father or a mother; the young woman [had] a beautiful figure and [was] very attractive. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had taken her as his daughter.

Esther did not disclose her people and her family because Modecai had charged her that she must not tell.

In the evening she would go and in the morning she would return to the {second harem} {under the care of} Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch in charge of the concubines. She would not go back to the king unless the king delighted in her and she was called by name.

When the turn came near for Esther daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken [her] as a daughter, to go to the king, she did not ask anything except what Hegai the eunuch of the king who was in charge of the women, advised. And Esther carried favor in the eyes of everyone that saw her.

Esther had not made known her family and her people, just as Mordecai had instructed her; for Esther {did what Mordecai told her}, just as when she was brought up by him.

And all of the king's servants who [were] at the gate of the king [were] kneeling and bowing down to Haman; for so the king had commanded concerning him, but Mordecai did not kneel and bow down.

They spoke to him day after day, but he did not listen to them, and they informed Haman to see if {Mordecai's resolve would prevail}; for he had told them that he [was] a Jew.

And Haman saw that Mordecai was not kneeling and bowing down to him, and he was filled [with] anger.

And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, "There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all of the provinces of your kingdom; their laws [are] different from every [other] people, and they do not {observe} the laws of the king; it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them.

he went up to the entrance of the gate of the king, for he could not go to the gate of the king in sackcloth.

And Esther's maids and her eunuchs came and they told her, and the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai so that he might remove his sackcloth--but he did not accept [them].

"All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces know that [if] any man or woman who goes to the king to the inner courtyard, who is not called, he has one law, to be killed, except if the king extends to him the gold scepter so that he may live. I have not been called to come to the king {for thirty days}."

Then Mordecai told [them] to reply to Esther: "Do not think that your life will be saved [in] the palace of the king more than all the Jews.

"Go, gather all the Jews that are found in Susa and fast for me; do not eat or drink [for] three days, both night and day. I and my young girls will fast likewise, and then I will go to the king, which [is] not according to the law; if I perish, I perish.

And Haman went out on that day rejoicing and {feeling good}. But when Haman saw Mordecai at the gate of the king, and he did not rise or tremble before him, Haman was filled {with rage toward} Mordecai.

{And Haman added}, "Esther the Queen did not let [just anyone] come to the banquet that she prepared with the king except me, and I am also invited tomorrow to her [banquet] with the king.

During that night the king's sleep escaped [him], and he gave orders to bring the {scroll of records and chronicles}, and they were read before the king.

Then the king said to Haman, "Quickly, take the clothing and the horse, just as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew who sits at the gate of the king; you must not leave out anything from what you have said."

And Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends all that had happened to him. And his advisers and Zeresh his wife said to him, "If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, [is] {from the descendants of the Jews}, you will not prevail against him, but will certainly fall before him."

I and my people have been sold to be destroyed and killed, to be annihilated. If we had been sold as male and female slaves I would have kept quiet, because this is not a need sufficient to trouble the king."

the ten sons of Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews; but they did not {touch} the plunder.

And the Jews were gathered who [were] in Susa, and on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed in Susa three hundred men, but they did not {touch} the plunder.

The rest of the Jews who [were] in the king's provinces gathered and {defended their lives} and {found repose} from their enemies. And they killed seventy-five thousand of those that hated them, but they did not {touch} the plunder.

the Jews established and adopted [it] for themselves and for their offspring, and for all who joined them. They did not neglect {to observe} these two days every year as it was written and appointed to them.

These days [are] to be remembered and [are] to be kept in every generation, and in family, province, and city; and these days of Purim are not [to be] neglected among the Jews, and their memory shall not come to an end among their offspring.

All the work of his authority and his {powerful deeds}, and the full accounting of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written on the scroll of the {chronicles} of the kings of Media and Persia?

Have you not put a fence around him and his household and around {all that belongs to him} {on every side}? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his livestock has increased in the land.

So Yahweh said to Satan, "Look, {all that belongs to him} is in your {power}. Only do not stretch out your hand {against} him." So Satan went out from Yahweh's {presence}.

In all this, Job did not sin and did not {charge God with wrongdoing}.

So he said to her, "You speak like one of the foolish women speaks. Indeed, should we receive the good from God, but not receive the evil?" In all this, Job did not sin with his lips.

Thus they lifted up their eyes from afar, but they did not recognize him, so they raised their voice, and they wept, and each man tore his outer garment and threw dust on their heads {toward the sky}.