1Then the people and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.
2Some of them said, "We have many sons and daughters. We must get grain, so that we may eat and live."
3Others said, "We have given up our lands, our vineyards and our houses as pledges, so that we could buy grain during the famine."
4Others said, "We have borrowed money to pay the king's tax, and we borrowed it against our lands and vineyards."
5"We are of the same flesh as our fellow Jews, and our children are like their children. Yet look, we are forcing our sons and our daughters into slavery. Some of our daughters have been made slaves already. We have no power to buy them back, because other men have our lands and vineyards."
6I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words.
7I thought it over in my mind. Then I rebuked the nobles and the rulers. I said to them, "Each of you is charging interest to your own brother." And I called a great assembly together against them.
8I said to them, "As far as we were able, we have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the nations. And now will you sell your own brothers? Must they be sold to us?" Then they were silent, and could find nothing to say.
9I also said, "What you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God, to avoid the scorn of the nations who are our enemies?"
10I too, and my brothers and my servants, could demand money and grain from them. But please, let us stop charging this interest.
11"Please give back to them this very day their lands, their vineyards, their olive groves and their houses. Give back also the hundredth part of the money, the grain, the wine and the oil that you are charging them."
12Then they said, "We will give it back, and we will demand nothing from them. We will do as you say." Then I called the priests, and made the nobles swear an oath that they would do as they had promised.
13I also shook out the fold of my robe and said, "In this way may God shake out from his house and from his property every man who does not keep this promise. May he be shaken out like this, and left with nothing." And all the assembly said, "Amen," and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised.
14From the time I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year until the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes, that is, twelve years, neither I nor my brothers ate the food allowed to the governor.
15But the earlier governors, who came before me, laid heavy burdens on the people. They took from them food and wine, besides forty shekels of silver. Even their servants ruled over the people. But I did not do so, because I feared God.
16I also kept working on this wall. We bought no land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work.
17Also, a hundred and fifty of the Jews and the rulers ate at my table, besides those who came to us from the nations around us.
18Each day one ox and six choice sheep were prepared for me. Birds were prepared for me too, and once every ten days a supply of all kinds of wine. Yet for all this I did not ask for the food allowed to the governor, because the labour lay heavy on this people.
19Remember me, my God, for good, because of all that I have done for this people.