But I replied, “Should a man like me run away? Would someone like me flee to the temple in order to save his life? ¹  I will not go!”

Was it not because of things like these that King Solomon of Israel sinned? Among the many nations there was no king like him. He was loved by his God, and God made ¹  him king over all Israel. But the foreign wives made even him sin!

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.

You split the sea before them, and they crossed through ¹  the sea on dry ground! But you threw their pursuers ²  into the depths, like a stone into surging ³  waters.

Isn’t this the way your ancestors ¹  acted, causing our God to bring on them and on this city all this misfortune? And now you are causing even more wrath on Israel, profaning the Sabbath like this!”

And now, though we share the same flesh and blood as our fellow countrymen, ¹  and our children are just like their children, ²  still we have found it necessary to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. ³  Some of our daughters have been subjected to slavery, while we are powerless to help, ⁴  since our fields and vineyards now belong to other people.” ⁵ 

The fifth time that Sanballat sent his assistant to me in this way, he had an open letter in his hand.

So the king said to me, “Why do you appear to be depressed when you aren’t sick? What can this be other than sadness of heart?” This made me very fearful.

I sent word back to him, “We are not engaged in these activities you are describing. ¹  All of this is a figment of your imagination.” ² 

Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat in light of these actions of theirs – also Noadiah the prophetess and the other prophets who were trying to scare me!

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 ¹  blasphemies.

But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard all this, ¹  they derided us and expressed contempt toward us. They said, “What is this you are doing? Are you rebelling against the king?”

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.

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. ¹ 

From the day that I was appointed ¹  governor ²  in the land of Judah, that is, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes – twelve years in all – neither I nor my relatives ³  ate the food allotted to the governor. ⁴ 

But the former governors who preceded me had burdened the people and had taken food and wine from them, in addition to ¹  forty shekels of silver. Their associates were also domineering over the people. But I did not behave in this way, due to my fear of God.