Study Desk

So it happened that the Jews who were living near them came and warned us repeatedly about all the schemes they were plotting against us.

So I stationed people at the lower places behind the wall in the exposed places. I stationed the people by families, with their swords, spears, and bows.

It so happened that when our adversaries heard that we were aware of these matters, God frustrated their intentions. Then all of us returned to the wall, each to his own work.

who were rebuilding the wall. Those who were carrying loads did so by keeping one hand on the work and the other on their weapon.

So we worked on, with half holding spears, from dawn till dusk.

I said to them, "To the extent possible we have bought back our fellow Jews who had been sold to the Gentiles. But now you yourselves want to sell your own countrymen, so that we can then buy them back!" They were utterly silent, and could find nothing to say.

I also shook out my garment, and I said, "In this way may God shake out from his house and his property every person who does not carry out this matter. In this way may he be shaken out and emptied!" All the assembly replied, "So be it!" and they praised the Lord . Then the people did as they had promised.

So I sent messengers to them saying, "I am engaged in an important work, and I am unable to come down. Why should the work come to a halt when I leave it to come down to you?"

You have also established prophets to announce in Jerusalem on your behalf, ‘We have a king in Judah!' Now the king is going to hear about these rumors. So come on! Let's talk about this."

All of them were wanting to scare us, supposing, "Their hands will grow slack from the work, and it won't get done." So now, strengthen my hands!

He had been hired to scare me so that I would do this and thereby sin. They would thus bring reproach on me and I would be discredited.

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth day of Elul, in just fifty-two days.

My God placed it on my heart to gather the leaders, the officials, and the ordinary people so they could be enrolled on the basis of genealogy. I found the genealogical records of those who had formerly returned. Here is what I found written in that record:

So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly which included men and women and all those able to understand what they heard. (This happened on the first day of the seventh month.)

So he read it before the plaza in front of the Water Gate from dawn till noon before the men and women and those children who could understand. All the people were eager to hear the book of the law.

So all the people departed to eat and drink and to share their food with others and to enjoy tremendous joy, for they had gained insight in the matters that had been made known to them.

So the people went out and brought these things back and constructed temporary shelters for themselves, each on his roof and in his courtyard and in the courtyards of the temple of God and in the plaza of the Water Gate and the plaza of the Ephraim Gate.

So all the assembly which had returned from the exile constructed temporary shelters and lived in them. The Israelites had not done so from the days of Joshua son of Nun until that day. Everyone experienced very great joy.

You prolonged your kindness with them for many years, and you solemnly admonished them by your Spirit through your prophets. Still they paid no attention, so you delivered them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.

"So now, our God—the great, powerful, and awesome God, who keeps covenant fidelity—do not regard as inconsequential all the hardship that has befallen us—our kings, our leaders, our priests, our prophets, our ancestors, and all your people—from the days of the kings of Assyria until this very day!