servants

Let thine eare now be attentiue, and thine eyes open, that thou mayest heare the prayer of thy seruant, which I pray before thee now, day and night, for the children of Israel thy seruants, and confesse the sinnes of the children of Israel, which wee haue sinned against thee: both I, and my fathers house haue sinned.

Now these are thy seruants, and thy people, whom thou hast redeemed by thy great power, and by thy strong hand.

O LORD, I beseech thee, let now thine eare be attentiue to the prayer of thy seruant, and to the prayer of thy seruants, who desire to feare thy name: and prosper, I pray thee, thy seruant this day, and grant him mercie in the sight of this man. For I was the kings cup-bearer.

Then answered I them, and said vnto them, The God of heauen, he will prosper vs, therefore wee his seruants will arise and build: But you haue no portion, nor right, nor memoriall in Ierusalem.

And it came to passe from that time forth, that the halfe of my seruants wrought in the worke, and the other halfe of them held both the speares, the shields and the bowes, and the habergeons, and the rulers were behind all the house of Iudah.

So neither I, nor my brethren, nor my seruants, nor the men of the guard which followed me, none of vs put off our clothes, sauing that euery one put them off for washing.

1611 marginal noteOr, euery one went with his weapon for water.

Yet now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children as their children: and loe, wee bring into bondage our sonnes and our daughters, to bee seruants, and some of our daughters are brought vnto bondage already, neither is it in our power to redeeme them: for other men haue our lands and vineyards.

I likewise, and my brethren, and my seruants, might exact of them money and corne: I pray you let vs leaue off this vsurie.

But the former gouernours that had bene before me, were chargeable vnto the people, and had taken of them bread, and wine, beside fourtie shekels of siluer, yea euen their seruants bare rule ouer the people: but so did not I, because of the feare of God.

Yea also I continued in the worke of this wall, neither bought wee any land: and all my seruants were gathered thither vnto the worke.