The governor instructed them not to eat any of the sacred food until there was a priest who could consult the Urim and Thummim.

We inquired of those elders, asking them, ‘Who gave you the authority to rebuild this temple and to complete this structure?’

and I weighed out to them the silver, the gold, and the vessels intended for the temple of our God – items that the king, his advisers, his officials, and all Israel who were present had contributed.

Indeed, they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has become intermingled with the local residents. Worse still, the leaders and the officials have been at the forefront of all of this!”

Then I went to the governors of Trans-Euphrates, and I presented to them the letters from the king. The king had sent with me officers of the army and horsemen.

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard all this, they were very displeased that someone had come to seek benefit for the Israelites.

This very day return to them their fields, their vineyards, their olive trees, and their houses, along with the interest that you are exacting from them on the money, the grain, the new wine, and the olive oil.”

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.

The governor instructed them not to eat any of the sacred food until there was a priest who could consult the Urim and Thummim.

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.

You guided them with a pillar of cloud by day and with a pillar of fire by night to illumine for them the path they were to travel.

“You came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them from heaven. You provided them with just judgments, true laws, and good statutes and commandments.

even when they made a cast image of a calf for themselves and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up from Egypt,’ or when they committed atrocious blasphemies.

So I registered a complaint with the nobles of Judah, saying to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the Sabbath day?

Nowhere in all the land could women be found who were as beautiful as Job’s daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance alongside their brothers.

No one remembers the former events, nor will anyone remember the events that are yet to happen; they will not be remembered by the future generations.

I also thought to myself, “It is for the sake of people, so God can clearly show them that they are like animals.

For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything; they have no further reward – and even the memory of them disappears.

What they loved, as well as what they hated and envied, perished long ago, and they no longer have a part in anything that happens on earth.

The look on their faces testifies to their guilt; like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. Too bad for them! For they bring disaster on themselves.