Study Desk

and on that day they offered great sacrifices and rejoiced because God had given them great joy, and the women and children rejoiced as well, so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard from far away.

So all Israel in the days of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah gave the portions due the singers and the gatekeepers as each day required, and they set apart the consecrated portion for the Levites, and the Levites set apart the consecrated portion for the sons of Aaron.

So when they heard the Law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

It was very displeasing to me, so I threw all of Tobiah's household articles out of the room.

I also discovered that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so the Levites and the singers who performed the service had gone away, each to his own field.

So I reprimanded the officials and said, "Why has the house of God been neglected?" Then I gathered them together and stationed them at their posts.

In those days I saw in Judah people who were treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs, and every kind of load, and they were bringing them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food.

"Did your fathers not do the same, so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath against Israel by profaning the Sabbath."

And it came about that just as it became dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered that the doors be shut, and that they were not to open them until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the Sabbath day.

Then I warned them and said to them, "Why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you." From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.

So I quarreled with them and cursed them, and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, "You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take any of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

Even one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, became a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I chased him away from me.

So I purified them from everything foreign, and assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each in his work,

But the drinking was done according to the royal law; there was no compulsion, for so the king had given orders to each official of his household, that he was to do as each person pleased.

But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's order delivered by the eunuchs. So the king became very angry, and his wrath burned within him.

"For the queen's conduct will become known to all the women so as to make their own husbands despicable in their sight, when they say, 'King Ahasuerus commanded that Queen Vashti be brought in to his presence, but she did not come.'

"If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may not come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she.

So he sent letters to all the king's provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their language, that every man was to be the ruler in his own house and the one who speaks in the language of his own people.

So it came about, when the command and decree of the king were heard and many young ladies were gathered to the citadel of Susa into the custody of Hegai, that Esther was taken to the king's palace into the custody of Hegai, who was in charge of the women.

Now the young lady pleased him and found favor with him. So he quickly provided her with her cosmetics and food, gave her seven choice female attendants from the king's palace, and transferred her and her attendants to the best place in the harem.