And the king said to me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall your journey be? and when will you return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.
O Lord, I plead with you, let now your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants, who delight to fear your name: and prosper, I pray you, your servant this day, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man. For I was the king’s cupbearer.
But in all this time I was not at Jerusalem: for in the thirty second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I came to the king, and after certain days I obtained leave of the king:
And I said to the king, If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ sepulchers, that I may build it.
Moreover from the time that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year even to the thirty second year of Artaxerxes the king, that is, twelve years, I and my brethren have not eaten the bread of the governor.
And those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places: you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
And they shall build the old waste places, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the desolate cities, the desolations of many generations.
Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and sixty two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troubled times.