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Nehemias 5
Now there was a great cry of the people, and of their
wives against their brethren the Jews.
And there were some that said: Our sons and our daughters
are very many: Yet us take up corn for the price of
them, and let us eat and live.
And there were some that said: Let us mortgage our lands,
and our vineyards, and our houses, and let us take corn
be- cause of the famine.
And others said: Let us borrow money for the king's
tribute, and let us give up our fields and vineyards:
And now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren: and
our children as their children. Behold we bring into
bondage our sons and our daughters, and some of our
daughters are bondwomen already, neither have we wherewith
to redeem them, and our fields and our vineyards other
men possess.
And I was exceedingly angry when I heard their cry according
to these words.
And my heart thought with myself: and I rebuked the
nobles and magistrates, and said to them: Do you every
one ex- act usury of your brethren ? And I gathered
together a great assembly against them,
And I said to them: We, as you know, have redeemed according
to our ability our brethren the Jews, that were sold
to the Gentiles: and will you then sell your brethren,
for us to redeem them ? And they held their peace, and
found not what to answer.
And I said to them: The thing you do is not good: why
walk you not in the fear of our God, that we be not
exposed to the reproaches of the Gentiles our enemies?
Both I and my brethren, and my servants, have lent money
and corn to many: let us all agree not to call for it
again; let us forgive the debt that is owing to us.
Restore ye to them this day their fields, and their
vineyards, and their oliveyards, and their houses: and
the hundredth part of the money, and of the corn, the
wine, and the oil, which you mere wont to exact of them,
give it rather for them.
And they said: We will restore, and we will require
nothing of them: and we will do as thou sayest. And
I called the priests and took an oath of them, to do
according to what I had said.
Moreover I shook my lap, and said: So may God shake
every man that shall not accomplish this word, out of
his house, and out of his labours, thus may he be shaken
out, and become empty. And all the multitude said: Amen.
And they praised God. And the people did according to
what was said.
And from the day, in which the king commanded me to
be governor in the land of Juda, from the twentieth
year even to the two and thirtieth year of Artaxerxes
the king, for twelve years, I and my brethren did not
eat the yearly allowance that was due to the governors.
But the former governors that had been before me, were
chargeable to the people, and took of them in bread,
and wine, and in money every day forty sides: and their
officers also oppressed the people. But I did not so
for the fear of God.
Moreover I built in the work of the wall, and I bought
no land, and all my servants were gathered together
to the work.
The Jews also and the magistrates to the number of one
hundred and fifty men, were at my table, besides them
that came to us from among the nations that were round
about us.
And there was prepared for me day by day one ox, and
six choice rams, be- sides fowls, and once in ten days
I gave store of divers wines, and many other things:
yet I did not require my yearly allowance as governor:
for the people were very much impoverished.
Remember me, O my God, for good according to all that
I have done for this people.
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