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!”

They contacted ¹  me four times in this way, and I responded the same way each time. ² 

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

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.

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.

I also shook out my garment, ¹  and I said, “In this way may God shake out from his house and his property every person who does not carry out ²  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. ³ 

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?”

Should we then in your case hear that you do all this great evil, thereby being unfaithful to our God by marrying ¹  foreign wives?”

Then the Levites quieted all the people saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy. Do not grieve.”

Even I and my relatives ¹  and my associates ²  are lending them money and grain. But let us abandon this practice of seizing collateral! ³ 

But prior to this time, Eliashib the priest, a relative of Tobiah, had been appointed over the storerooms ¹  of the temple of our God.

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?

I gave myself to the work on this wall, without even purchasing ¹  a field. All my associates were gathered there for the work.

On the twenty-fourth day of this same month the Israelites assembled; they were fasting and wearing sackcloth, their heads covered with dust.

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 ¹  would be discredited. ² 

(10:1) ¹  “Because of all of this we are entering into a binding covenant ²  in written form; ³  our leaders, our Levites, and our priests have affixed their names ⁴  on the sealed document.”

Every day one ox, six select sheep, and some birds were prepared for me, and every ten days all kinds of wine in abundance. Despite all this I did not require the food allotted to the governor, for the work was demanding on this people.

When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official ¹  heard all this, they were very displeased that someone had come to seek benefit for the Israelites.

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.

Please remember me for this, O my God, and do not wipe out the kindness that I have done for the temple of my God and for its services!