8
and I said to them, We of our free-will have redeemed our brethren the Jews that were sold to the Gentiles; and do ye sell your brethren? and shall they be delivered to us? And they were silent, and found no answer.
9
And I said, The thing which ye do not good; ye will not so walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the Gentiles our enemies.
10
Both my brethren, and my acquaintances, and I, have lent them money and corn: let us now leave off this exaction.
11
Restore to them, I pray, as at this day, their fields, and their vineyards, and their olive-yards, and their houses, and bring forth to them corn and wine and oil of the money.
12
And they said, We will restore, and we will not exact of them; we will do thus as thou sayest. Then I called the priests, and bound them by oath to do according to this word.
13
And I shook out my garment, and said, So may God shake out every man who shall not keep to this word, from his house, and from his labours, he shall be even thus shaken out, as an outcast and empty. And all the congregation said, Amen, and they praised the Lord: and the people did this thing.
14
From the day that he charged me to be their ruler in the land of Juda, from the twentieth year even to the thirty-second year of Arthasastha, twelve years, I and my brethren ate not extorted from them.
15
But as for the former acts of extortion wherein before me oppressed them, they even took of them their last money, forty didrachms for bread and wine; and the outcasts of them exercised authority over the people: but I did not so, because of the fear of God.
16
Also in the work of the wall I treated them not with rigor, I bought not land: and all that were gathered together thither to the work.
17
And the Jews, to a hundred and fifty men, besides those coming to us from the nations round about, at my table.
18
And there came for one day one calf, and I had six choice sheep and a goat; and every ten days wine in abundance of all sorts: yet with these I required not the bread of extortion, because the bondage was heavy upon this people.