These are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his city.

These are the heads of the province who dwelt in Jerusalem. (But in the cities of Judah everyone dwelt in his own possession in their cities; Israelites, priests, Levites, temple slaves, and sons of Solomon's servants.)

Now these are the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city.

Let it be known to the king that we went into the province of Judea, to the house of the great God, which is being built with rolling stones, and timber is being laid in the walls; and this work goes on diligently and prospers in their hands.

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus (this was the Ahasuerus who reigned over one hundred and twenty-seven provinces, from India to Ethiopia),

Here we are, servants this day! And the land that You gave to our fathers, to eat its fruit and its bounty; behold, we are servants in it.

And it yields much increase to the kings You have set over us, because of our sins; also they have dominion over our bodies and our cattle at their pleasure; and we are in great distress.

You have given us up like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations.

You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those who are round about us.

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

For there those who took us captive asked of us a song, and those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion!

Rise up, you women who are at ease; hear my voice, you careless daughters; listen to my speech.

Tremble, you women at ease; be troubled, you careless ones; strip yourselves and make yourselves bare, and gird sackcloth on your loins.

On the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city;

In the days of her affliction and her wandering, Jerusalem remembered all her desirable things from ancient days, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy with no one to help her. The enemies saw her; they laughed at her annihilation.

You have heard their reproach, O Jehovah, all their plots against me;

Remember, O Jehovah, what has come upon us; look down and behold our reproach.

then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will send away from before My face; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to those who are around us.

Therefore I will defile the rulers of the sanctuary, and will give Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.

and I will deliver them over in horror into all the kingdoms of the earth for evil, for a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, there in all the places where I shall drive them.

And I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and will make them objects of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse, and a waste, and a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them,

For thus says Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel: As My anger and My fury have been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so shall My fury be poured forth upon you when you shall enter into Egypt. And you shall be a curse, and a wonder, and a shame, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more.

in that you provoke Me to wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have gone to live, that you might cut yourselves off and that you might be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth?

They have not humbled themselves to this day, nor have they feared, nor walked in My Law, nor in My statutes which I have set before you and before your fathers.

And I will take the remnant of Judah, who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there; and they shall all be consumed, and fall in the land of Egypt. They shall be destroyed by the sword and by the famine. They shall die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they shall be a curse, a wonder, and a shame, and a reproach.

Then I said to them, You see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.

And all the army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls of Jerusalem all around.

And now I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard; I will take away its hedge, and it shall be burned; and break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down;

Your holy cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem is a desolation.

Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised You, is burned up with fire; and all our pleasant things are laid waste.

Go up on her vine rows and destroy; but do not make a full end; take away her branches, for they are not Jehovah's.

And the Chaldeans burned the king's house and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem.

And all the army of the Chaldeans, with the captain of the guard, broke down all the walls of Jerusalem all around.