2
because they have not come before the sons of Israel with bread and with water, and hire against them Balaam to revile them, and our God turneth the reviling into a blessing.
3
And it cometh to pass, at their hearing the law, that they separate all the mixed people from Israel.
4
And before this Eliashib the priest, appointed over chambers of the house of our God, [is] a relation of Tobiah,
5
and he maketh for him a great chamber, and there they were formerly putting the present, the frankincense, and the vessels, and the tithe of the corn, the new wine, and the oil -- the commanded thing of the Levites, and the singers, and the gatekeepers -- and the heave-offering of the priests.
6
And during all this I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty and second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon did I come unto the king, and at the end of days I have asked of the king,
7
and I come in to Jerusalem, and understand concerning the evil that Eliashib hath done for Tobiah, to make to him a chamber in the courts of the house of God,
8
and it is very displeasing to me, and I cast all the vessels of the house of Tobiah without, out of the chamber,
9
and I speak, and they cleanse the chambers, and I bring back thither the vessels of the house of God with the present and the frankincense.
10
And I know that the portions of the Levites have not been given, and they flee each to his field -- the Levites and the singers, doing the work.
11
And I strive with the prefects, and say, `Wherefore hath the house of God been forsaken?' and I gather them, and set them on their station;
12
and all Judah have brought in the tithe of the corn, and of the new wine, and of the oil, to the treasuries.