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His servants spoke yet more against the LORD God, and against his servant Hizkiyahu.

For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Yehudah and Yerushalayim from the high places, and the Asherim, and the engraved images, and the molten images.

From the first day of the seventh month began they to offer burnt offerings to the LORD: but the foundation of the temple of the LORD was not yet laid.

Then came the same Sheshbatztzer, and laid the foundations of the house of God which is in Yerushalayim: and since that time even until now has it been in building, and yet it is not completed.

For we are bondservants; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Paras, to give us a reviving, to set up the house of our God, and to repair the ruins of it, and to give us a wall in Yehudah and in Yerushalayim.

Shekhanyahu the son of Yechi'el, one of the sons of `Elam, answered Ezra, We have trespassed against our God, and have married foreign women of the peoples of the land: yet now there is hope for Yisra'el concerning this thing.

but if you return to me, and keep my mitzvot and do them, though your outcasts were in the uttermost part of the heavens, yet will I gather them from there, and will bring them to the place that I have chosen, to cause my name to dwell there.

The rulers didn't know where I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Yehudim, nor to the Kohanim, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest who did the work.

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brothers, our children as their children: and, behold, we bring into bondage our sons and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daughters are brought into bondage [already]: neither is it in our power to help it; for other men have our fields and our vineyards.

Now that which was prepared for one day was one ox and six choice sheep; also fowls were prepared for me, and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine: yet for all this I didn't demand the bread of the governor, because the bondage was heavy on this people.

yet you in your manifold mercies didn't forsake them in the wilderness: the pillar of cloud didn't depart from over them by day, to lead them in the way; neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way in which they should go.

But after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore left you them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times did you deliver them according to your mercies,

and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they dealt proudly, and didn't listen to your mitzvot, but sinned against your ordinances, (which if a man do, he shall live in them,) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.

Yet many years did you bear with them, and testified against them by your Spirit through your prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gave you them into the hand of the peoples of the lands.

Yet for all this we make a sure covenant, and write it; and our princes, our Levites, [and] our Kohanim, seal to it.

Didn't your fathers do thus, and did not our God bring all this evil on us, and on this city? yet you bring more wrath on Yisra'el by profaning the Shabbat.

Did not Shlomo king of Yisra'el sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, and he was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Yisra'el: nevertheless even him did foreign women cause to sin.

Ester had not yet made known her relatives nor her people; as Mordekhai had charged her: for Ester did the mitzvah of Mordekhai, like as when she was brought up with him.

Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordekhai the Yehudi sitting at the king's gate.

While they were yet talking with him, came the king's chamberlains, and hurried to bring Haman to the banquet that Ester had prepared.