Study Desk

O LORD, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of those who are willing to worship thy name; and save thy servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was cup hearer to the king.

And said to the king, Let the king live for ever; why should not my countenance be sad, when the capital city of the kingdom of my fathers is in ruin, and its gates have been burned with fire?

Then the king said to me, For what did you make supplications and pray before the God of heaven?

And the king said to me, You are foolish. For how long shall your journey be? And when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me; and he set me a time.

And a letter to Asaph the keeper of the kings forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the temple and for the castle and for the walls of the city and for the house that I shall dwell in it. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.

Then I went on to the gate of the valley and to the kings pool; but there was no place for the beast that I was riding to pass.

Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in; for, behold, Jerusalem is lying waste and its gates are burned with fire; come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may be no longer a reproach.

Then f told them of the hand of my God which was with me for good, and also the kings words that he had spoken to me. And they said, Let us rise up and build. So they strengthened their hands for this good work.

And next to them repaired Melatiah the Gibeonite and Nadon the Merothite, and the men of Gibeon and Mizpah. They also made a throne for the governor on this side the river Euphrates.

Hear, O our God, for we have become ridiculed; and turn their reproach upon their own head, and give them for a prey in the land of their captivity:

And forgive not their offenses, and let not their sins be blotted out from before thee; for they are enraged, and have opposed the building which we are doing.

But as for us, we shall continue to build the wall; and the people are building it, and all the wall is completed to the half thereof; for the people have a mind to work.

And I was afraid, and arose and said to the nobles and to the rulers and to the rest of the people, Be not afraid of them; remember the LORD, who is great and revered, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses.

In what place therefore you hear the sound of the trumpet, come to us there; our God shall fight for us.

And as for us, let us continue in our work; and half of us let them hold the spears from the rising of the sun till the stars appear.

So neither I nor my brethren nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off his clothes for many full months, and each one did his duty.

For there were those who said, Our sons and our daughters and our brothers are many; therefore let us purchase grain that we may eat and live.

And there were also those who said, Now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children are as their children; and, 1o, we are compelling our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are already compelled to become maidservants; and yet they do not raise their hands in protest before God; and our fields, our vineyards, and our goods are given for other men.

We are redeeming our brethren the Jews, who were sold to the nations, both they and their children, and will you even take a man in pledge for his brother? Therefore I shouted at them, and said to them, Will you also sell your brethren? Then they were silent, and did not answer me.

Also I said to them, The thing that you are doing is not good; for now you are not walking in the reverence of our God, because you are behaving like the nations which are round about us.