4. Before this, Eliashib the priest who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God—the one related to Tobiah—
5. prepared for Tobiah a large chamber where they had formerly put the grain offering, the frankincense, the temple objects, tithes of grain, wine, and oil commanded for the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers, and the offerings of the priests.
6. During all of this, I was not in Jerusalem because in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I went to the king. At the end of some days I asked permission from the king to leave.
7. So I came to Jerusalem. And I came to learn of the wrong that Eliashib had done for Tobiah by making him a room in the courtyard of the house of God.
8. It was very displeasing for me, and I threw all of the objects from the house of Tobiah outside of the chamber.
9. And I spoke in order, and they cleansed the chambers. Then I returned the objects of the house of God—the grain offering and the frankincense.
10. And then I came to learn that the food of the Levites had not been given to them, so that the Levites and the singers, the doers of the work, had gone back each to his field.
11. So I quarreled with the prefects, and I said, “Why is the house of God forsaken?” And I gathered them and set them at their station.
12. So all of Judah brought the tithe of grain, new wine, and olive oil into the storehouses.
13. I appointed as treasurer over the storehouses Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, Pedaiah from the Levites, and as their hand Hanan son of Zaccur, son of Mattaniah, for they were considered faithful. The responsibility given to them was to distribute to their brothers.
14. Remember me, my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my loyal acts which I have done in the house of my God and in his service.
15. In those days I saw in Judah people treading the wine press on the Sabbath, bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys along with wine, grapes and figs, and every kind of burden and bringing it all to Jerusalem on the day of the Sabbath. And I warned them at that time against selling food.
16. Tyrian men who lived in Jerusalem brought fish and every kind of merchandise and sold it on the Sabbath to the descendants of Judah and in Jerusalem.
17. So I quarreled with the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, profaning the day of the Sabbath?
18. Did not your ancestors do this also, and our God brought on us all of this disaster and on this city too? Now you are adding fierce wrath on Israel by profaning the Sabbath!”