Chapter 5

¹ And the cry of the people and their wives was great against their brethren the Jews. ² And some said, We are numerous with our sons and our daughters; so we will take corn, and eat, and live. ³ And some said, As to our fields and vineyards and houses, let us pledge them, and we will take corn, and eat. ⁴ And some said, We have borrowed money for the king's tributes:--our fields, and our vineyards, and houses are pledged. ⁵ And now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children are as their children: yet, behold, we are ¹reducing our sons and our daughters to ²slavery, and some of our daughters are enslaved: and there is no power of our hands, for our fields and our vineyards belongg to the nobles.

⁶ And I was much grieved as I heard their cry and these words. ⁷ And my heart

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took counsel ³within me, and I contended against the nobles, and the princes, and I said to them, ⁴Should every man demand of his brother what ye demand? And I appointed against them a great assembly, ⁸ and I said to them, We of our free-will have redeemed our brethren the Jews that were sold to the Gentiles; and do ye sell your brethren? and shall they be delivered to us? And they were silent, and found no answer. ⁹ And I said, The thing which ye do is not good; ye will not so walk in the fear of our God ⁵because of the reproach of the Gentiles our enemies. ¹⁰ Both my brethren, and my acquaintances, and I, have ⁶lent them money and corn: let us now leave off this exaction. ¹¹ Restore to them, I pray, as at this day, their fields, and their vineyards, and their olive-yards, and their houses, and bring forth to them corn and wine and oil of the money. ¹² And they said, We will restore, and we will not exact of them; we will do thus as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and bound them by oath to do according to this word.

¹³ And I shook out my garment, and said, So may God shake out every man who shall not keep to this word, from his house, and from his ⁷labours, he shall be even thus shaken out, as an outcast and empty. And all the congregation said, Amen, and they praised the Lord: and the people did this thing.

¹⁴ From the day that ⁸he charged me to be their ruler in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of Arthasastha, twelve years, I and my brethren ate not provision extorted from them. ¹⁵ But as for the former acts of extortion wherein those who were before me oppressed them, they even took of them their last money, forty didrachms for bread and wine; and the very outcasts of them ⁹exercised authority over the people: but I did not so, because of the fear of God. ¹⁶ Also in the work of the wall I treated them not with rigor, I bought not land: and all that were gathered together came ¹⁰thither to the work. ¹⁷ And the Jews, to the number of a hundred and fifty men, besides those coming to us from the nations round about, were at my table. ¹⁸ And there came to me for one day one calf, and I had six choice sheep and a goat; and every ten days wine in abundance of all sorts: yet with these I required not the bread of extortion, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.

¹⁹ Remember me, O God, for good, in all that I have done to this people.