and a letter for Asaph the keeper of the king’s nature preserve, ¹  so that he will give me timber for beams for the gates of the fortress adjacent to the temple and for the city wall ²  and for the house to which I go.” So the king granted me these requests, ³  for the good hand of my God was on me.

So it happened that the Jews who were living near them came and warned us repeatedly ¹  about all the schemes ²  they were plotting ³  against us.

They discovered written in the law that the LORD had commanded through ¹  Moses that the Israelites should live in temporary shelters during the festival of the seventh month,

They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your mighty strength and by your powerful hand.

There were those who said, “With our sons and daughters, we are many. We must obtain ¹  grain in order to eat and stay alive.”

There were others who said, “We are putting up our fields, our vineyards, and our houses as collateral in order to obtain grain during the famine.”

Then there were those who said, “We have borrowed money to pay our taxes to the king ¹  on our fields and our vineyards.

I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these complaints. ¹ 

Please remember me for good, O my God, for all that I have done for this people.

When the wall had been rebuilt and I had positioned the doors, and the gatekeepers, the singers, and the Levites had been appointed,

You multiplied their descendants like the stars of the sky. You brought them to the land you had told their ancestors to enter in order to possess.

“We will not give our daughters in marriage to the neighboring peoples, and we will not take their daughters in marriage for our sons.

I said to the king, “If the king is so inclined, let him give me letters for the governors of Trans-Euphrates ¹  that will enable me to travel safely until I reach Judah,

Then I said to them, “You see the problem that we have: Jerusalem is desolate and its gates are burned. Come on! Let’s rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that this reproach will not continue.”

Then I related to them how the good hand of my God was on me and what ¹  the king had said to me. Then they replied, “Let’s begin rebuilding right away!” ²  So they readied themselves ³  for this good project.

When all our enemies heard and all the nations who were around us saw ¹  this, they were greatly disheartened. ²  They knew that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God.

all the people gathered together ¹  in the plaza which was in front of the Water Gate. They asked ²  Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had commanded Israel.

You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, ¹  along with all their multitude of stars, ²  the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You impart life to them all, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.

Even when they were in their kingdom and benefiting from your incredible ¹  goodness that you had lavished ²  on them in the spacious and fertile land you had set ³  before them, they did not serve you, nor did they turn from their evil practices.

When the evening shadows ¹  began to fall on the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered ²  the doors to be closed. I further directed that they were not to be opened until after the Sabbath. I positioned ³  some of my young men at the gates so that no load could enter on the Sabbath day.