Douay Rheims Original ↷
Nehemiah 5 📜 📕 ↷
Nehemiah Defends the Oppressed
1 AND there was a great cry of the people, and of their wives against their brethren the Jews.📜💬📚
2 And there were that said: Our sons and daughters are very many: let us take corn for the price of them, and let us eat, & live.📜💬📚
3 And there were that said: Let us pledge our fields, & vineyards, and our houses, and let us take corn in famine.📜💬📚
4 And others said: Let us borrow money for the king's tributes, and let us give our fields and vineyards,📜💬📚
5 and now as the flesh of our brethren, so is our flesh: and as their children so also our children. Behold we subdue our sons, and our daughters into bondage, and our daughters there are bond women, neither have we wherewith they may be redeemed, and our fields and our vineyards other men do possess.📜💬📚
6 And I was exceeding angry, when I had heard their cry according to these words.📜💬📚
7 And my heart thought with my self: and I rebuked the Princes and magistrates, and said to them: Do you every one exact usuries of your brethren? And I gathered against them a great assembly.📜💬📚
8 and I said to them: We as you know, have redeemed our brethren the Jews, that were sold to the gentiles, according to our ability: & will you therefore sell your brethren, and shall we redeem them? And they held their peace, neither did they find what to answer.📜💬📚
9 And I said to them: The thing is not good, which you do: why walk you not in the fear of our God, lest we be upbraided with all the gentiles our enemies?📜💬📚
10 I also & my brethren, and my servants, have lent money and corn to very many: let us not ask this again in common, let us remit them the debt, that is due to us.📜💬📚
11 Restore ye to them their fields this day, and their vineyards, & their olivets, and their houses: yea the hundreth part also of money, corn, wine, and oil, which you were wont to exact of them, give it rather for them.📜💬📚
12 And they said: We will restore, and we will seek nothing of them: and we will do so as thou speakest. And I called the Priests, and adjured them to do according to that which I had said.📜💬📚
13 Moreover I shook my bosom, and said: God so shake every man, that shall not accomplish this word, out of his house, and out of his labours, so be he shaken out, and made empty. And all the multitude said: Amen. And they praised God. And the people did as it was said.📜💬📚
Nehemiah's Generosity
14 And from that day, wherein the king commended me to the Duke in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year till 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 Dukes.📜💬📚
15 But the former Dukes, that had been before me, burdened the people, & took of them in bread, & wine, and money, every day forty sicles: yea & their officers oppressed the people. But I did not so for the fear of God.📜💬📚
16 Yea I builded rather in the work of the wall, and field I bought not, and all my servants were gathered together to the work.📜💬📚
17 The Jews also & the magistrates an hundred fifty men, and they that came to us out of the nations, that were round about us, were at the table.📜💬📚
18 And there was prepared for me day by day one oxe, six chosen rams, beside fowls, and within ten days diverse wines, and many other things did I give. Moreover also the yearly allowance of my dukedom I sought not, for the people was very much impoverished.📜💬📚
19 Remember me my God to good, according to all things which I have done to this people.📜💬📚
Copyright © 2025 by Narrow Gate Bible Productions. All Rights Reserved.
