1   There came a time when the common people, both men and women, raised a great outcry against their fellow-Jews. 2   Some complained that they were giving their sons and daughters as pledges ^note for food to keep themselves alive; 3   others that they were mortgaging their fields, vineyards, and houses to buy corn in the famine; 4   others again that they were borrowing money on ^note their fields and vineyards to pay the king's tax. 5   ‘But’, they said, ‘our bodily needs are the same as other people's, our children are as good as theirs; yet here we are, forcing our sons and daughters to become slaves. Some of our daughters are already enslaved, and there is nothing we can do, because our fields and vineyards now belong to others.’ 6   I was very angry when I heard their outcry and the story they told. 7   I mastered my feelings and reasoned with the nobles and the magistrates. I said to them, ‘You are holding your fellow-Jews as pledges for debt.’ 8   I rebuked them severely and said, ‘As far as we have been able, we have bought back our fellow-Jews who had been sold to other nations; but you are now selling your own fellow-countrymen, and they will have to be bought back by us!’ They were silent and had not a word to say. 9   I went on, ‘What you are doing is wrong. You ought to live so much in the fear of God that you are above reproach in the eyes of the nations who are our enemies. 10   Speaking for myself, I and my kinsmen and the men under me are advancing them money and corn. Let us give up this taking of persons as pledges for debt. 11   Give back today to your debtors their fields and vineyards, their olive-groves and houses, as well as the income ^note in money, and in corn, new wine, and oil.’ 12   ‘We will give them back’, they promised, ‘and exact nothing more. We will do what you say.’ So, summoning the priests, I put the offenders on oath to do as they had promised. 13   Then I shook out the fold of my robe and said, ‘So may God shake out from his house and from his property every man who does not fulfil this promise. May he be shaken out like this and emptied!’ And

The walls of Jerusalem rebuilt all the assembled people said ‘Amen’ and praised the Lord. And they did as they had promised.

14   Moreover, from the time when I was appointed governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes, a period of twelve years, neither I nor my kinsmen drew the governor's allowance of food. 15   Former governors had laid a heavy burden on the people, exacting from them a daily toll ^note of bread and wine to the value of forty shekels of silver. Further, the men under them had tyrannized over the people; but, for fear of God, I did not behave like this. 16   I also put all my energy into the work on this wall, and I ^note acquired no land; and all my men were gathered there for the work. 17   Also I had as guests at my table a hundred and fifty Jews, including the magistrates, as well as men who came to us from the surrounding nations. 18   The provision which had to be made each day was an ox and six prime sheep; fowls also were prepared for me, and every ten days skins ^note of wine in abundance. Yet, in spite of all this, I did not draw the governor's allowance, because the people were so heavily burdened. 19   Remember for my good, O God, all that I have done for this people.

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