After this he built an outer wall for the City of David, west of Gihon, in the valley and toward the entrance of the Fish Gate, where it went around Ophel, and raised it to a very great height. Then he positioned military commanders in all the fortified cities in Judah.
The remainder of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all who separated themselves from the people of the lands to the Law of God —their wives, their sons, and their daughters, that is, everyone who had knowledge and understanding—
At the Fountain Gate, directly across from them, they ascended the steps of the City of David, following that sloped section of the wall up to the house of David, then eastward to the Water Gate.
All the people gathered together as one man in the area in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the Book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel.
So the people went out and brought back branches and made themselves booths, each on the roof of his house, and in their yard, on the grounds of the house of God, in the area in front of the Water Gate, and in the square of the Gate of Ephraim.
In the area in front of the Water Gate, he read aloud from sunrise until midday to the men, women, and those who could understand. All the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
because the palaces have been forsaken, the populated city is forsaken. The forts and towers shall be caves forever, a joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks,