And was the cry of the people and their wives great against their brethren the Jews.
And there were some saying, With our sons and with our daughters we are many; and we shall take grain, and shall eat and shall live.
And there are some saying, Our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses we mortgaged, and we shall take grain and we shall eat.
And there are some saying, We borrowed money for tribute of the king of our fields, and our vineyards, and our houses.
And now as the flesh of our brethren our flesh; as their sons our sons; and behold, we are tyrannizing over our sons and our daughters selling them for servants, and there are some of our daughters being tyrannized already; and there is no power to redeem them by our hands, and our fields and our vineyards belong to the important ones.
And I fretted very much as I heard their cry and these words.
And I took counsel in my heart with me, and I did combat against the important ones, and the rulers. And I said to them, Shall a man exact from his brother what you do? And I put upon them a great assembly.
And I said to them, We have acquired our brethren the Jews, the ones having been sold to the nations, by our voluntary offerings; and do you sell your brethren? Or shall they be sold to us? And they were quiet, and they did not find a word.
And I said, The matter which you do is not good. Should you not thus in the fear of our God go forth because of the scorn of the nations of our enemies?
And also I, and my brethren, and my acquaintances, put up for them money and grain; we abandoned indeed this exaction.
Return indeed to them, even today, their fields, and their vineyards, and their olive groves, and their houses, and of the money for the grain, and the wine, and the olive oil bring forth to them!
And they said, We will give it back, and from them we will not seek, we shall do thus as you say. And I called the priests, and bound them by an oath to do as this saying.
And my wrap I shook off, and said, Thus shall God shake off every man who does not stand by this word, of his house, and of his toil; and he will be thus shaken and empty. And all the assembly Amen. And they praised the lord. And the people did this thing.
And also from the day which he gave charge to me to be as their ruler in the land Judah, from year the twentieth, and until year the thirtieth and second of Artaxerxes the king, years twelve, that even I and my brethren bread of my governing did not eat.
But the rulers, the ones before me, oppressed upon the people, and took from them in bread loaves and in wine; and last money shekels of forty. And also their servants dominated over the people. But I did not do so because of the countenance of the fear of the lord.
And in the work of the wall these things I repaired. Fields of land I did not acquire, and my servants and all the ones gathering there for the work.
And the Jews, and the rulers a hundred fifty men, and the ones coming to us from the nations round about us were at my table.
And there was coming in day one — calf one, and sheep six choice, and a winter yearling; there came to me also in the midst of ten days in all wine in multitude. And with these bread of my governing I did not seek, for was heavy the slavery upon the people.
Remember me, O God! for all good as much as I did to the people.