Lexicon :: Strong's H413 - 'ēl

For I was [fn]cupbearer to the king [of Persia].

So I came to Jerusalem and was there for three days.

Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation that we are in—how Jerusalem is desolate and lies in ruins and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so that we will no longer be a disgrace.”

[And Nehemiah prayed] Hear, O our God, how we are despised! Return their taunts on their own heads. Give them up as prey in a land of captivity.

Our enemies said, “They will not know or see us until we are among them, kill them and put a stop to the work.”

Now there was a great outcry of the [poorer] people and their wives against their Jewish brothers [to whom they were deeply in debt].

When I went into the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was [fn]confined at home, he said, “Let us meet [and take refuge] together in the house of God, [fn]within the temple, and let us shut the doors of the temple, because they are coming to kill you, and they are coming to kill you at night.”

Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials, and the people to be registered by genealogy. Then I found the register of the genealogy of those who came [from Babylon] first, and I found the following record:

Then all the people gathered together as one man at the open square 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 given to Israel.

On the second day, all of the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, were gathered before Ezra the scribe to gain insight into the words of [fn]the Law (divine instruction).

“But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly;

They stiffened their necks and would not heed Your commandments.

“You made their children as numerous as the stars of heaven,

And You brought them into the land

Which You told their fathers to enter and possess.

“Yet they were disobedient and rebelled against You,

And cast Your law behind their backs

And killed Your prophets who warned them

To return to You;

And they committed great [and contemptible] blasphemies.

And You admonished them and warned them to turn them back to Your law.

Yet they acted presumptuously and arrogantly and did not heed Your commandments, but sinned against Your ordinances,

Which by keeping, a man will live.

But they turned a stubborn shoulder, stiffened their neck, and would not listen.

“Our kings, our princes, our priests, and our fathers have not kept Your law

Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your warnings which You have given them.

Now the rest of the people—the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the Law of God, their wives, their sons, their daughters, all those who had knowledge and understanding—

As for the villages with their fields, some sons (descendants) of Judah lived in Kiriath-arba and its [fn]towns, Dibon and its towns, and Jekabzeel and its villages,