The cry of the poor
1Then a great outcry arose from the common people and their wives against their fellow Jews. 2Some were saying, “We are many, we and our sons and our daughters. Let us get grain so that we can eat and stay alive.” 3Others were saying, “We are pledging our fields, our vineyards and our houses to get grain during the famine.” 4And still others were saying, “We have borrowed money against our fields and vineyards to pay the king’s tax. 5Our flesh is the same as the flesh of our relatives, our children the same as theirs. Yet here we are, forcing our sons and daughters into slavery — some of our daughters have already been taken — and we are powerless, because our fields and vineyards belong to others.” 6I was furious when I heard their outcry and these complaints. 7I turned the matter over in my mind, and then I confronted the nobles and the officials. “Every one of you is charging interest to his own brother,” I told them; and I called a great assembly to deal with them. 8I said to them, “As far as we were able, we have bought back our fellow Jews who had been sold to the nations. And now you are selling your own brothers, only to have them sold back to us!” They kept silent; they could find nothing to say. 9So I went on: “What you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God, and spare us the taunts of the nations, our enemies? 10I too, with my brothers and my men, have been lending them money and grain. Let us give up this claim on them. 11Give them back, this very day, their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves and their houses, together with the hundredth part of the money, the grain, the new wine and the oil that you have been charging them.” 12They answered, “We will give it back, and we will demand nothing more from them. We will do exactly as you say.” Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles swear to keep this promise. 13I also shook out the fold of my robe and said, “So may God shake out of his house and his property every man who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and left empty.” The whole assembly said, “Amen,” and praised Yahweh. And the people kept their promise.
The governor who took nothing
14What is more, from the day I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes — twelve years — neither I nor my brothers ever ate the food allotted to the governor. 15The governors before me had laid a heavy burden on the people, taking from them forty shekels of silver besides food and wine; even their attendants lorded it over the people. But I did not act that way, out of the fear of God. 16I put my own strength into the work on this wall. We bought no land, and all my men were gathered there for the work. 17At my table there sat a hundred and fifty Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations around us. 18Each day one ox, six choice sheep and birds were prepared for me, and every ten days a generous supply of wine of every kind. Even so, I never claimed the food allotted to the governor, because the labor lay heavy on this people. 19Remember me, my God, for good, for everything I have done for this people.
