And the gatekeepers: Akkub, Talmon and their colleagues who were guarding the gates – 172.

Mattaniah, Bakbukiah, Obadiah, Meshullam, Talmon, and Akkub were gatekeepers who were guarding the storerooms at the gates.

and from Beth Gilgal and from the fields of Geba and Azmaveth, for the singers had built settlements for themselves around Jerusalem.

I was very upset, and I threw all of Tobiah’s household possessions out of the storeroom.

The traders and sellers of all kinds of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem once or twice.

Please remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the priesthood, and the Levites.

The matter seemed appropriate to the king and the officials. So the king acted on the advice of Memucan.

Then Mordecai again sat at the king’s gate, while Haman hurried away to his home, mournful and with a veil over his head.

So the Jews committed themselves to continue what they had begun to do and to what Mordecai had written to them.

Now the day came when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord – and Satan also arrived among them.

But Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! Indeed, a man will give up all that he has to save his life!

Then his wife said to him, “Are you still holding firmly to your integrity? Curse God, and die!”

That day – let it be darkness; let not God on high regard it, nor let light shine on it!

Let those who curse the day curse it – those who are prepared to rouse Leviathan.

Or why was I not buried like a stillborn infant, like infants who have never seen the light?

I have no ease, I have no quietness; I cannot rest; turmoil has come upon me.”

“If someone should attempt a word with you, will you be impatient? But who can refrain from speaking?

Call to mind now: Who, being innocent, ever perished? And where were upright people ever destroyed?

By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

The mighty lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.